Bitter Freedoms
by MoonlitSerenity
Summary: After Johanna escapes Turpin, she wanders the streets until captured for stealing bread and sentenced to Botany Bay. While in captivity, she meets an agonized man who holds a piece of her past and guards her with a fierce protection. Her father.Sweenett
1. Chapter 1

If you have clicked on this story, I implore you to read on.

Not even five minutes had passed after I clicked complete on my last story and I suddenly felt a new idea come into my mind. I still thank everyone who supported me in my last story and hope I have gained new readers and interested old ones in this tale. In case the summary was not enough on the previous page, I intend to give you a longer summary that will increase your interest.

As we all know, Benjamin Barker was convicted of a crime that he obviously did not commit. He was sent to an Australian penal colony where he was forced to perform grueling tasks as his nemesis, Judge Turpin, coveted his beautiful wife, and later on, their child, Johanna.

Here is my twist on things.

Johanna, who is now fifteen years of age (which means her father has spent fourteen years in prison, not yet fifteen himself), is a tortured child who is forced to run from her abusive guardian, Judge Turpin. She is thrust upon the streets where the girl learns the true meaning of horror. After days of wandering, she acts upon her desperation and is apprehended by the law. Through with the rambunctious youth of their city, a foreign judge sentences Johanna to imprisonment in Australia so that she may "teach all troubled youths a lesson of justice". (Might I add that this is historically correct and they did indeed, send woman to penal colonies and adolescents as well) Johanna is taken into custody in the Australian prison where she befriends many of her prison mates, witnesses grotesque deeds, gains unwanted enemies, and meets one man that ensures her safety, yet reopens locked doors of her past. This man, as you may have guessed, is her missing father, though the truth is unbeknownst to her.

I warn you that this story is filled with agony, torture, betrayal, and dark themes. I strive to portray the true events that took place within these punitive colonies and within the Victorian town of London, which are not the glorious events that some have made them out to be. These are times of true hardships.

I also assure you that underneath the darkness and detestation, there is light and adoration.

Please continue reading if you wish to read a story based upon courage, strength, love, and the human determination to survive that both separates and unites us all.

**Chapter 1**

Through the thick mist of the gloomy London town, a young girl was scrambling through streets in the darkness of the night, stumbling and tripping over cobble stones, as well as sobbing and shrieking when she thought of her pathetic escape and the grueling consequences she would have face if she were to be _apprehended._

She could not risk that.

Johanna Barker blindly turned down an abandoned road, stifling her fearful sobs by worrying her bottom lip with her chattering teeth. The thin air wrapped her soft skin in its icy embrace, sending shivers through the fifteen year old girl's spine. All admiration for the outside world was lost with each trip in the muddy road. Was it possible that she had actually _yearned_ to spend her days outside only yesterday?

Another street came into sight around a sharp corner, though this one was occupied by a group of young men. Upon hearing her footsteps, they turned and observed the child with interested smiles on their vicious faces. Johanna let out a piercing cry and turned towards the adjacent road, running as if she were running from death itself. The looks on their faces…how they resembled her guardian before he would…

Falling to her knees after her feet faltered, Johanna moaned as her skin pierced jagged stone. Blood soon seeped through the hole in her dress, dripping down her leg and staining the rest of the material with its crimson trail.

_Oh, she could not do this!_

_It had been an ordinary day. Johanna had slipped from her bed, though she had not slept a bit, and dressed. Afterward, her door was opened to reveal her guardian, Judge Turpin. The child could not help but wonder to herself how the man knew she was done dressing so quickly. Turpin's eyes wondered over her every curve, penetrating all strength she had mustered for the day. _

_The girl was used to his ways. Ever since she had been twelve years of age, this man, this _monster_ had touched her, abused her, molested her…She knew all too well, for Johanna Barker was not an ignorant girl. When one lives with a sexually perverted man, it is hard not to ignore the motives of his actions as hard as she may have tried. And for that, Johanna cursed her own beauty with a cynical hate. _

_The previous night had been an everlasting nightmare. He had locked her in her room for the whole day, as he usually did, and had the audacity to enter her small prison at night, a lustful fire blazing in his eyes as he clenched his fists._

"_Undress," he ordered her as he began tearing at his own shirt._

"_But…"_

_The piercing look he sent her told her to crush her objections and do as he said. She did not fight him, no, he was far too strong. She had learned to lay and allow her "father" to take her dignity and purity. Her weakness seemed to fuel his power. _

"_Sit up!" he would spit in her face when her limp figure challenged his movements and wandering hands. She could do nothing but oblige. _

_Through with her pathetic helplessness, Johanna began to plan a desperate escape to freedom. The day was young…Perhaps she could slip away while her guardian was at court! No, she would be noticed in the light by the strollers in the road…For the remainder of the day, the young girl thought and each thought brought hope as well as frustration. She could not wait this long! _

_The night sky began to push all light from the world, swallowing all of London in an endless curtain of black. If she were to flee, she would need to slip away in the darkness and leave her personal hell. _

_Slowly, Johanna grasped the handle of her door and eased it open, wincing when it gave off a slight moan. After she had enough room to make her way out, she left the solitude of her room and snuck her way down the hallway. Vulgar and despicable images of sexual intercourse were considered an admirable decoration in her home._

_Servants whisked past her as she hid behind the safety of concealing corners. She cursed the uncertainty that plagued her as she went through the meandering halls. She had never actually seen all of the building before, yet she knew where the side entrance was, and that was all that mattered. _

_The low rumble of her guardian's voice was heard in the dining area, soon followed by the snorting laughter of his friend, Beadle Bamford. The Beadle tended to sneak into her very room at night, claiming her body and promising violence if she were to inform Turpin of their sexual intercourse. Johanna had kept the secret to herself in hopes to save herself from any unpleasant assaults. _

_Johanna strained her ears to hear the parts of their conversation. "Johanna…woman…very beautiful… we…here…yes…Barker…mother…"_

_The bits of their conversation sent warmth coursing through Johanna's body. From the sounds of the discussion, Johanna presumed they were speaking of her parents. Her parents…Turpin had never spoken much of her parents except for the depressing fact that her father was a horrendous convict and her mother had committed suicide because she could not bear taking care of her needy daughter. Turpin had said that Johanna was lucky he took her in long ago because no one else would have taken her in. The only positive thing he mentioned of her past was her mother's glorious appearance and her last name. _

_Then there were the faces. The faces came to her in her at night when she would curl up on her bed and imagine the features of her lost parents. While in thought, her mind would take on sights differing from what lay before her. A blonde woman and a handsome suitor smiled at her, their faces carefree and happy. Johanna prayed that these were her parents. Then, the face of the man would fade, suddenly leaving the woman in pure grief and mourning. The memory would fail at that point._

"_Johanna….here…" The sounds of her captor's voices brought a foreboding sense of doom as she snuck past the dining room and towards the side hall. _

"_Gertrude!" Turpin shouted, nearly sending Johanna crashing to the floor in fear. _

"_Yes, sir?" the head maid of the house answered. The maid was not a particular favorite of Johanna's. In fact, the woman had ignored the child since as long as she could remember, stating that she would "end up like her mother." Johanna shivered when she thought of her mother's fate in comparison to her own. _

"_Retrieve my ward. She's been shut up all day and I would like to enjoy her…," a pause, "…company."_

"_It shall be done, sir." _

_Blind panic rippled through her body in shuddering waves as she listened to the maid's fading footsteps. Soon, they would know she had left the room. She was out of time! _

_Without giving the action a second thought, Johanna bounded for the side entrance. She pushed the door open and ran into the night, tripping over the material of her dress before gaining her footing and rushing towards an unknown destination. Her breathing was labored within seconds, for she had never run before in her entire life due to her being locked away from the world. _

It was obvious that she could not stay in London. If she were found, she would be dragged back to Turpin by a man in hopes of a handsome sum for his services. The judge had made it all too clear what he was to do with her if she were to even attempt running from her own. All threats now seemed to haunt her, to condemn her to the edge of madness. She could never return to London, nor would she ever have the desire to do so.

She passed by a group of women who stood on the corner of the street on which she was standing. Pulling her arms closer to her body, the girl paced in front of them without casting them a single glance.

"Hey, darling, wouldn't you like to work for us, love?" one of the women hollered.

Her guardian's words echoed in her ears the moment the women had spoken. _"_There are many women out there who would be willing to share my bed, you ungrateful wretch!" he had shouted after her refusal when he offered himself to her. "…Prostitutes…after all I have given you…and you deny me." Johanna had cried herself into a deep slumber that night.

_What had happened to the man who had treated her like his own blood? What had she done to him to deserve such fowl treatment? She could faintly remember the comforting hand that he placed on her shoulder when she cried; she could barely recollect the acts of affection he had shown her. If there was a time where he had been, even the slightest in measure, her father, it was gone now. _

"Come 'ere, child," the prostitute called again, encouraged by the laughter of her companions and shattering the depth of Johanna's thoughts.

"No, thank you," Johanna whispered with a frown. Limping, she passed the group. Her running had reduced to sluggish walking.

The night had begun to fade away as the morning strollers began their promenade. All seemed so peaceful. The tranquility was almost a mockery to the girl.

Unsure of where she was, Johanna could simply presume that she was no longer in London_. The distance she had walked surely must have been great enough to land her in a new town at the very least!_

Johanna sent a group of young children a quick glance as she trod past their assembly in the road. The small boys wrestled with each other while the girls giggled and pressed their plump hands to their flushed cheeks.

The unfaltering smiles on the faces of the children made Johanna sigh with envy.

_When had fear become a daily ritual in her life? When had her existence taken a turn for the worst, resulting in her seemingly unending agony and detestation of herself? _

After midday, all the teen had was an uncoordinated sense of direction and hope that she had escaped her torment once and for all. Dizzy from exhaustion, she staggered across a group of workers who were unloading goods out of wooden crates. Though most stared at her with a hunger in their eyes, they dared not indulge in their desires while the sun was still out and witnesses roamed the area.

The girl had been driven to the point where she believed all good things in her life were destined to die. It would only be a matter of time before she too, lay in the ashes of virtue.

"We all fall," she moaned. "It will only be a matter of time before I do as well."

And through her bitter hate, she continued to walk on.

Days had come to pass and still, she traveled. The sun chased the moon in a never ending race; the golden beams penetrated the darkness of the night. Johanna Barker became tired and only rested when need be. She would stop at night, slump down in a secluded area and wake when the slightest sound she heard.

She had been confronted by unknown strangers, most being shady and sly. Johanna would turn on her heel and run from anyone who came up to her and alarmed her. After a few days, her running skills had increased, but she could not muster the energy to do so any longer, so she resorted to staying awake as must as she could and avoiding contact with anyone

She was dying, that much could be said. Johanna knew she had options that would save her. She could, for example, sell her body to men. A prostitute. The idea appalled her. To sell her own body to a man, well, she could have stayed with her previous guardian if she truly desired that. She could turn around and simply return home; and hope that she would not be punished for her flight. The chances of that were absolutely preposterous.

With a sense of defeat, she traveled far from her hometown, begging for a scrap of food wherever she may get it. Some pitied her and emptied a few coins into her hand, stating that she "needed to put some meat on her bones." Gratefully, she would turn into the nearest shop and purchase a pastry for her aching stomach and a cup of water to quench her burning throat.

The teen's body had begun to shrink. Her ribs stood out in a sickly matter, her hair was matted with grease and filth, and her body was aching from malnutrition. The freedom she was seeking came with a terrible price and the child was not sure she could pay it for another day without dropping to the floor, dead.

On a frigid January day, Johanna shuffled her feet across the floor of a busy marketplace. In all honesty, she was famished. As wealthy customers regarded the items for sale with a respectful interest, Johanna coveted the items with a burning desire. _Only a little food…that was all she needed…_

Johanna pulled her tattered dress closer to her quivering body. A stand filled with fresh bread had the girl's eyes watering and her stomach twisting with excruciatingly painful knots. The smell had reached her nose, wrapping its luscious scent around her conscience and forcing her to take a step towards the vendor.

_Please, she begged. I have never stolen._

_Ah, but it is only a piece of bread! You can run…they will not catch you._

With a nod to herself, the girl inched towards the stand.

_Yes. _

Johanna gazed at the food before her. Its scent now stabbed her lungs. Her hands twitched, sobs built in her throat and still she stood, wondering if she should simply reach out and snatch the food.

_It is right there! Do it!_

The girl snatched the loaf and began ripping it into pieces, stuffing each bite into her mouth, swallowing, and wincing when the large bite made her throat throb with pain.

"Miss, yeh need to be payin' for that now!" the baker demanded as he held out his hand, expecting to see coins placed in his large palm.

Johanna jumped and stood frozen, stunned by the sudden appearance of the man. "I…do not have money…I…," she stammered.

"No money?" the man asked quietly as he began to withdraw his palm. His eyes glistened dangerously.

_Run!_

"I…" Johanna fell silent. In a moment, the girl turned her body around and dashed away from the demanding baker, running as fast as her weekend legs could carry her. She shot passed any obstacles in her way and shoved away all persons that blocked her getaway. Cries of guilt made her slow.

A hand then fell upon her shoulder and jerked her backwards. With a scream, she was thrust into the chest of a large male. As she looked at her captor, she realized that the man was a constable and with a moan of despair, she understood that she had failed when freedom was at her fingertips.

"Come 'ere, you," he muttered as he pinned her arms behind her back and led her down the road with him after straightening her figure. "Should 'ave thought 'bout wot you were doing, little one, 'fore you went on and did it. Now, you got some rough times ahead o' yeh. Don't struggle!"

Johanna writhed in his grip until she was slack with fatigue. "Where are we going?" she asked simply with her head bent as they continued along the road. People shook their heads as they studied the girl being led by the officer.

"To prison, I suppose."

Johanna felt all hope leave her with one despairing sentence. Darkness swallowed her whole, encasing her in its despairing grip.

And she did not fight it.

**If you have read this far, I thank you so much for doing so. Please tell me how you feel on this chapter, the story idea, or my way of writing. If you wish for this story to continue, please do not hesitate in saying so. Your reviews motivate me to write more. **

**All my love,**

**Lovebug!**


	2. Chapter 2

I would like to thank you all for your reviews. They are warmly welcomed be they compliments, suggestions, criticism, or downright FLAMING! Now, please understand the more reviews I receive, the more encouraged I am to continue writing. I implore you to continue the commenting as I carry on this story.

Without anything further, I present the second chapter of _Bitter Freedoms._

**Chapter 2**

"Kill me."

The stench of death was suffocating, overpowering. There was no room to shift about the cells. All was dark and all was agonizing.

"Kill me!"

Johanna rested her sticky head on the cool surfaces of the bars that held her captive.

"KILL ME!!"

A man on the floor reached upward to the heavens with a thin arm, begging for the almighty lord to grant him the eternal boom of sleep, the merciful act of a quick death. His face was caked with dirt from the sickening stone floors, his eyes were swollen shut from the numerous tears he had cried while screaming, groping, and bleeding in the hole that the officials were to call a _prison._

Johanna inched away from his foreboding figure and curled her body into the bars until her head throbbed from the pressure.

_Would she rather be here or in the home of Turpin? _

A woman stretched her arms out and let out a series of vulgar curses towards the man who stood guard outside their cell. The brunette female then sent him a gesture of complete disrespect and spat at his boots, cackling from the pleasure of doing so.

_She would rather spend the rest of her days here than return to Turpin!_

An adolescent, perhaps a few years older than her, stood and made his way towards the blonde girl with a wry smile brightening his face. He had a sand colored hair and eyes that held comparison to the grey skies that had plagued London since she was a child.

"'ello there, Miss," he chortled as he leaned in towards Johanna. "Don't s'ppose you got anyone to keep you warm at night, now do you?"

With a sigh of disgust and a moan of fear, Johanna turned from the boy's looming figure and squeezed her eyes shut just as she had done so many nights under the hand of her guardian.

_Why was she here if she would only receive the same fate as if she were at Turpin's home? Did the world consist of nothing but pain and assault?_

From the moment she had arrived in this hell house, she had recoiled from the scents of bodies and sobbed when she saw the mounds of bleeding flesh whose blood painted the floors of their shared prisons.

The constable who had brought her in had looked through the bars before leaving her in the room with murderous felons and petty thieves. His eyes had held a certain sorrow, as if he felt guilty for leaving the child there, alone and defenseless. She had spent at least a night in the prison and still, she regarded her arresting officer with spite.

His pity was meaningless.

The boy, who was still hovering over her crumpled body, began to speak. "Come on, now! Don't be so frightened, miss. Our lives were sorry then and they ain't gonna be worth saving later!"

"What do you mean?" Johanna inquired as she straightened herself and stared into the smoky eyes of the teen. "What do you mean that we will not be worth saving?"

A sinister chuckle escaped his cracked lips. "Did you actually think that you were going to be staying here to fill out some sort o' sentence? Ha! Oh, Miss, if you are good at bein' lucky, which you ain't if you landed in this shit-hole, then you gonna be dead by the morrow! They don't keep sorry fellows like you 'nd me locked away for them to feed and clothe! Like hell, they will!"

A shiver of shock crept through the stiff child's body. "Do you mean that…the guards…are going to kill us?"

"Either that or transportation to some blasted colony in the middle of the bleedin' dessert!"

"But…I merely took bread!" She began to tremble without cease.

The boy's face darkened. "And all I did was smash into a god-damn gent and they 'ccuse me of attempted murder."

Johanna looked away from the boy so he would not see the tears that left streaks down her pale face. However, this did not go unnoticed. The sand haired boy snatched Johanna's chin in a rough grasp and stared into her watered eyes, a certain softness creeping over his face and loosening his strained muscles. Within a moment, he had released her chin and turned from the girl. Wordlessly, he stepped over haggard men, moaning women and children, and sank to his knees on the opposite side of the jail. Whatever lightness he had felt about death soon morphed into morbid acceptance.

Johanna silently wondered to herself why the boy had left her when he had been so lethal before, but the sharp hunger pains that ripped apart her stomach left her gasping without any hint of a thought besides one thing and one thing only: pain. She had only been able to eat a little bit of the loaf the other day. Only a small bit…and she had been near the brink of death from her starvation.

The gates to the cell opened to reveal an officer dressed in night black. His eyes scanned the fearful faces of the feeble, leaving him with a feeling of dominance, power. Johanna had only seen the look in his eyes from her previous guardian after every moment of her displays of weakness.

As the officer began to walk through the heaps of bodies, he continuously searched for a face among the crowd of. His gaze then rested upon the face of Johanna. She shrunk away from the degrading burn of his eyes, wishing for anything but his advance. The pain still made her eyes water, yet she managed to bite the inside of her cheek and disguise the pain in her that could only be compared to a knife in her gut.

The constable's footsteps hushed all voices within the room. All glances rested upon Johanna and the officer who stood in front of her with a grim smile of accomplishment. "Looks like I found you, Miss."

With a muffled cry, the child buried her face in her hands.

"Your name's Johanna, is it not?"

_How had he known her name? Had Turpin discovered her whereabouts and sent an officer to retrieve her!?_

As if he were answering her internal question, the officer began, "Mr. Hoffman, the fellow who arrested you, told me after your arrest. Said that you could only say your first name as he was leading you here and then you got all quiet. Wasn't sure if you were a ghost or not, but here you stand, Miss Johanna. What's your last name, love?"

_Turpin…_ "Barker…Johanna Barker," she replied with a sudden pride at the beauty of her true name.

"Barker, I see. Well, the honorable Judge Pedlar will be seein' you now and decidin' what it is we are to do with the likes of yeh," he informed the child who had continued to bask in the glory of the closest thing she had to her parents: her last name.

"Wipe that smile off o' your face and stand up, wretch!"

Johanna jumped to her feet, nearly stumbling over the foot of a teenage girl who, in return, snatched her foot away and muttered words of inaudibility.

"At least, sir," Johanna whispered, "tell me where I am."

The man raised a bushy brow. "You don't know where you are? Well then, looks like we've caught ourselves a thinker! You're in Birmingham, my sweet, Birmingham."

_She was not in London! She had evaded her guardian and traveled such a great distance, there was not even a small chance her guardian would discover her whereabouts…or…her fate._

Though her thoughts had turned rather morose, the girl seemed to float to the exit of her cell. For a moment, it seemed as if the dark prison had begun to shine with hope. Hope that she would never have to face her guardian again, hope that she would be able to see the beauty of daylight before she was enveloped by the bottomless darkness, and above all, hope that if heaven existed…then she would be there the moment her thrashing body had released her soul. With a reverent desire, Johanna prayed that she would indeed be sent to heaven and the moment her spirit arrived…she imagined being embraced by the welcoming arms of her angels: her parents.

A sudden pride caused the girl to walk with her head held slightly higher, only to fall as she was pushed towards the court house. Her captor suddenly held her arms behind her back with his large hand, sending her body rough pushes when she tripped over the shreds of her dress.

The building was located outside of the prison, nearby so that the "guards would not have to cart the pigs around for too long." The courthouse loomed over all as if itself were a prison, warning all who came near that not one convict came out without a sentence upon his shoulders.

"Up those stairs," he barked at the girl. As the doors were opened, Johanna noticed nothing extraordinary about the room itself. It was rather plain, a few candles, a large window draped with curtains of a plush color, and many men wearing wigs dusted with powder and scowls on their faces. The men sat together at a large table, drearily drumming their fingers on the wood of the tables and gazing at the outside world from the window, obviously wishing that they were breathing in the free, fresh, and cold air of the morning.

Johanna was shoved onto a stand which was located in front of and even larger stand. An elderly man was perched on a chair, higher above all others, with a wig that had begun to slip from his grey head. He held no life in his eyes and his glasses rode down his nose until they were nearly flung off of his head as he looked upward. He assessed Johanna with a bored expression and suddenly turned to another gentleman who sat beside him. As he whispered to the man by his side, he gazed at Johanna, yet again, and leaned forward to speak.

The teen's knees nearly gave way the moment he spoke. "You have been brought before this court, in front of the Merciful Lord himself, due to thievery, have you not?" He did not give her a chance to answer. "As I'm sure you know thievery is frowned upon in the eyes of this house as well as God himself. Life dedicated to crime cannot and will not go unpunished."

Johanna bowed her head under the pressure of his words. He had treated her like a common criminal.

"Too many youths in our town have been brought before my bench, too many we tell you! I have seen younglings stand where you do know, Madame, and I say too all that this treachery must be stopped and a lesson…learned."

With a shaky breath, Johanna gripped the railing of her stand and prepared to hear how she was to die for the punishment of starvation. "Just end it," she whispered to herself through clenched teeth.

"As punishment for this atrocity, I sentence you to the colony of Botany Bay, Australia."

_What?!_

"While you are there, you will be flogged for any insubordinations and enslaved, if need be, for the remainder of your life. Should you be deemed as worthy, you will earn a ticked of leave and be allowed to return here and tell others of your experiences. I wish for this to serve as a lesson to you and to all of Birmingham."

While lifting her head, Johanna stood straight in disbelief. Her finger left the banister and she now gazed at the judge who had so carelessly condemned her to a life in torturous slavery.

"God willing have mercy on this adolescent and bring in the next prisoner."

With a bang of his gravel and a roll of his eyes, all was ended. Men groaned in displeasure as a man was brought before the bench and Johanna was carted past the officials of which, not even one spared the silent girl a glance.

_She was to go to Botany Bay? She would not be killed, but enslaved? _

"Come 'ere, darlin'. Looks like you'll be goin' to a sand pit for a while, eh?" Her prison guard laughed with a grab at her wrists. "Oh, don't worry. You 'eard the honorable gent, did you not? You behave like a little lady, and they'll grant you a ticket back home."

The sun blinded Johanna the moment she had left the court and begun to make her way back to the prison house.

"It's a downright pity that the next boat for all of yeh convicts won't be leaving for another week, so I suppose you'll just have to stay in your comfy little cell until then. I hear that the boat ride is a real luxury."

"Sir," she whimpered in a small voice, "What is going to happen to me?"

The guard's sniggering fell silent and he continued on in a sudden somber attitude. "Child, my advice to you would be this: Stay out of trouble and do as they say. You will be beaten mercilessly if you do anythin' unwise. I'm sure that you'll find a nice gent there that'll take care o' you, he will. Don't start cryin' now! I cannot handle seein' a small thing, such as you, in tears!"

The cell door was opened the moment the pair came towards it after their swift pacing through the streets. Shrieks of anguish erupted from the darkness, convincing Johanna that she was entering the underworld once more and she would not be there for a few days, but for a full week. Then, she would have to suffer the ship that led her towards her doom. Afterward, she would end her days slaving in the hot sun.

_Would she rather be with Turpin _now_? _

"Remember what I told you," the officer said as he sent her a gentle push inside. "Listen to what your officers say!"

Johanna struggled through the darkness, touching disgust on the walls and barely making out the words of the constable as he turned from the prisons and staggered away from the helpless detainees.

"God almighty, do what they say."

The next chapter will be up as soon as humanly possible and will consist of Johanna's fate after her weak in prison is up and she is sent to the ship which will transport her to Botany Bay. Once more, please comment. (I assure you all, Mr. Sweeney Todd is approaching our story!)


	3. Chapter 3

Hello again everybody and welcome new readers.

This chapter was particularly long and I plan on shortening the trip that Johanna endures to the colony as much as I can. It was an eight month boat journey and there is only so much you can do on a floating prison. Understand that the quicker I skip ahead, the sooner I can get our beloved Sweeney Todd (right now Benjamin Barker) into the story.

Please understand that this took a hell of a lot of research so nearly all of the events I write about are historically accurate.

**Chapter 3**

One week and it seemed that Johanna Barker had seen nearly a lifetime's worth of horrors.

Prison had been such a foreign thought when she was younger, and yet, here she was, struggling in the darkness, covering herself from any eyes that dared to wander over frail body. It was not long before the bones beneath her dirtied skin had begun to stick out, giving her the appearance of a corpse after its wake.

She was allowed to bathe once during the whole week she had spent there. The girl was taken to the bathroom stalls, though the door barely covered any of her body, and was allowed to bathe for five minutes with a small piece of brown soap. The water had not been changed, forcing her to rub the murky liquid over her filthy hair and sore figure. The tub was coated with a greased slime the moment she stepped outside, trembling from the frigid temperature of the water.

The clothes she was given were what the guards referred to as "party clothes". She was given a petticoat that covered a serge dress. A white hat and crude stockings with blue and red stripes completed the shameful look and she was allowed to rip through a pile of shoes and find one pair that was slightly big around her toes, but reliable.

She was given watery soup and a slight bit of water in the mornings and bread for dinner. Compared to all the nights she had spent in wretched hunger, each meal was considered generous nourishment.

Her week had passed. Most of the prisoners had not given her too much trouble, save the ones that were bound for the gallows who followed the strict rule of "I am going to die anyway!" The few times the child was bothered, it mainly consisted of a few crude suggestions and a series of rough shoves about the cell area when their anger was in desperate need of a release.

The day had come where she would be taken from her homeland and whisked away to Australia aboard a convict ship. The moment the transportation ship, The _Hougoumont_, had arrived in the harbor near the city, Johanna was retrieved from her cell and brought outside where she stood among a long line of convicts. The majority of the convicts were men while a woman and child were sighted only a few times in the vast section of criminals.

Johanna, along with all the others, had their legs shackled with ironed chains to limit the chance of escape. The girl could barely lift her legs with the locks on her feet. She could only wince as her shoes dragged along the floor and the guards demanded that she should "pick up the pace".

All were marched through town. They had been transferred to the docks which were to be where the prison ship was positioned. As they walked towards the harbor, people stood to the sides of the convicts that were being carted to their fate. Whispers were heard all around and despairing glances were sent towards the prisoners, most were that of pity and some consisted of pure spite.

"Serves 'em right," a side woman snapped as a chained convict man stumbled on the irons around his legs. He sent her a melancholy frown and straightened himself so he could walk along his fellow mates. Johanna resisted the urge to send a sharp kick to the woman with her ironed legs.

Their ship was a proud sight, holding appeal and causing many to question the fact it was a prison ship. Its wood was a deep brown and the masts blew in the gentle breeze, extravagant even to the weary eye. Johanna squinted at the sight for the sun burned her eyes once more after days of incompatible darkness.

"Come on, 'urry it up, miserable creatures," a sentry demanded as the planks were loaded and the prisoners shoved aboard.

Cries were heard from a group of women on the sides of the road as they were detained by patrols. A cherry haired woman reached her arm out to a shackled man. The look in her eyes held such horror, such passionate agony; it was unbearable to stare into her face without shuddering. The prisoner at which she reached towards lurched towards the young woman and flung his arms around her torso, burying his face in her hair. He let out a moan of pain as she wept until a guard wrenched the man from her grasp and dragged him towards the prison ship while sending his skull a series of heavy blows. The glorious female was left alone, shrieking and tearing her lavish red hair with clawed fingers until her locks fell to the floor and she was left in her sorrow, tearing at her skin in helpless mourning.

Johanna blinked away the tears that formed in her own eyes after the heartbreaking scene had reached its conclusion.

Footsteps creaked on the decks as passengers staggered across the planks. The looks on their faces varied from feeble vulnerability to black abhorrence towards their captors.

While slipping her hands over the wood of the ship's railing, the blonde haired girl studied the land of England for, what she assumed, to be the last time she ever would. The area seemed so tranquil, so peaceful, it was almost as if the town had ceased in time and now stood isolated, a solemn farewell. For a moment, a split moment, Johanna could feel her body slacken with sorrow at the thought of parting from all that she had ever known.

_Then again, this was where she had been locked away and abused for so many years. _

With a sharp whirl of her head, Johanna turned away from the land of England and made her way to the groups of convicts that she was to share the trip with. To her surprise, more convicts, from different prisons, were being loaded onto the _Hougoumont_ as well.

"Goin' to be a bloody crowded ship," a sentry muttered under his breath as he studied the crowds of people.

For at least an hour, convicts were loaded aboard the ship. From old men to children younger than Johanna, everyone was herded onto the ship and stood together. All that could be made out from their conversations was a jumble of distorted conversations.

"Where are we goin'?"

Johanna was jostled aside by a group of sailors.

_So many voices! _

"Stand back filthy bastards!"

"Please, my wife…children are sick…how will they survive without me?"

With a shriek, she was shoved halfway across the deck as a group of tussling men struggled against the other. She broke free of the fight and shoved her way towards a less crowded area.

"Touch me again you sons of bitches and see what the hell I will do to yeh!"

With trembling hands, the teen lifted her body from the floor after being thrown down by the push of a panicked man.

One voice overcame all. "ALL OF YOU ARE TO GO BELLOW DECKS NOW!!"

With one single command, all pandemonium broke loose. Men struggled against their guards, hollering the names of their loved ones and resisting the hands of their demeaning captors. Women clutched at the railings of the ship and searched desperately for a sign of someone who would come to their aid.

Through all of this, Johanna stood still, a solitary figure among the screaming and groaning whimpers of the oppressed.

Finally, the prisoners were gathered together and shoved below decks and into the "hulks". Johanna and her inmates were placed in a sectioned off area, where yet another set of bars awaited them all. A tall guard pushed Johanna against the wall and sent a slap to her face the moment she screamed.

"Shut it, I have to unlock your irons, bleedin' idiot," he hissed as he unlocked her chains and shoved them off of her feet. He then stood and began to repeat the task with the other woman, leaving Johanna with a stinging cheek which blistered later on.

The men and women were not allowed to lodge within the same cell. It was feared that sexual intercourse during the journey would be a distraction from their labor, so they were segregated by a large barred wall.

The convict girl picked a small corner in the room and hid her face from the world.

The journey to Botany Bay had begun.

The trip had taken so long, Johanna was not sure she would be capable of walking straight on land ever again. They had been at sea for six months at the very least and so little had changed. The women were still treated like whores and the men still turned to physical violence when an argument was struck up. The food was still horrible, the storms were still sickening, and the illness was still spreading like a wildfire.

She had followed the pattern of smuggling food for the others and washing the decks of the ship. Sometimes, the ship's priest would smile at her and recite a few words from the Good Book, sending warmth through her body when he spoke of liberation for the demoralized. The priest and a good portion of the women onboard were the few sources of kindness that Johanna found as she fought to survive the journey.

Many others had died and some officers would take the corpses, fling them overboard, and think nothing of it. Their cruelty was enough to make the Barker child nauseous.

Johanna was permitted to stroll the decks for fresh air and exercise every once in a while. Guards were everywhere, barricading the women from the men. Still, the crude comments could be heard from the lips of nearly ever male on the ship, including the officials. Many of them had taken a particular interest in Johanna and not one of them dared to indulge in their desires until one rainy afternoon.

Johanna was scrubbing the decks aboard the ship in order to earn a good meal for the night as well as sneak as much as she could to Rosemary, a woman who had been with child since she had boarded the ship. While clinging to her hope, Johanna worked and prayed that she would gain a morsel of food that she could distribute to the pregnant woman and perhaps save her unborn child.

A black pair of boots stopped in front of her hunched figure. Johanna gazed upward at the man who stood in front of her, flinching when she felt a droplet of rain fall on her face. The man was a guard, for she could tell by his uniform, with a particular attractiveness to him. He had brunette hair that was tied back and framed his narrow face. His deep brown eyes showed a sort of compassion for the girl as he stood over her. With a gentle nod, he began to speak.

"Good afternoon, Miss."

The girl stood from her work and offered the gentleman a curtsey. "And to you, sir," she answered as she sent her scrubbing brush into the watery confinements of the dirtied soap water.

He looked around the masts and towards the cloudy skies. "I suppose we are going to be getting a storm any time soon. Should be quite flooded down there…I trust the convicts have been treating you well," he said with a raise of a smooth brow.

Johanna thought to herself. Yes, her fellow prisoners had treated her with decency. Not many had time to make enemies with her when all their strength was used for fighting disease and trying to survive the vile conditions of the hulks.

"Yes, my inmates have been treating me very well, officer," she informed with emphasis on the fact that she was a convict as well.

He studied her with a tilt of his head and continued. "I have been noticing you about the ship, Miss. I must say, your beauty has been a relief to me. After all of the despicable woman I have had to put up with, I admit that you are truly a breath of fresh air."

Speechless, the teen bowed her head from the comment even though she felt a sting of spite for the man who had just insulted the other woman aboard the ship.

"You know," he started with growing strength within his voice, "the women on this ship are quite dependent on the males, due to their week nature. So many of the females have already attached themselves to the officers for protection and in return, they meet the needs of their protectors." He leaned forward to the girl. "I offer you my protection, child, if you will do as I say. Will you accept my offer?"

_Would she be beaten if she refused? She had heard of a guard who had given his mistress 50 lashes for refusing him!_

The guard's words from her formal prison suddenly rang in her head like a strong warning.

_God almighty, do what they say._

"I will accept your offer, sir."

His face brightened. "Very well, I shall bring you to my cabin and you will be provided with food and medical attention. I heard that there was an outbreak of scurvy below decks. It would be best if I had you inspected for infection. I must say that the last thing I need is an infected cabin."

"I understand, sir," Johanna muttered as she studied at her own form, more self conscious than she had ever been in her life.

_Why did this man make her feel lower than the dirt of London's streets? _

She had bathed yesterday, and yet, she suddenly felt as if she were the dirtiest thing to ever have taken a breath of life.

"May I know the name of my, as you said, protector, good sir?" she inquired while wiping her hands on the folds of her dress that was provided for her ages ago.

The man in uniform shied away from her glance before saying, "You may call me Adrian. And you are…?

"My name is Johanna."

"Johanna…pretty name. Now, this way to my cabin…Mind your head by the entrance."

The man's room was small, cluttered with maps, furniture, and a cot. There was a desk in the corner crowded with papers and various instruments used for different purposes. A large map hung over the desk, labeled _The World_ in fancy lettering. A tiny window above his desk allowed little light to pass through. Johanna assumed it was the rain that caused the darkness.

Adrian had kept his word. Within the hour, Johanna had been fed a meal and inspected for scurvy. Her results were perfectly normal and she was dammed "fit" for being in the officer's presence.

She now sat in a large chair, lost in its material. The officer leaned against an opposite wall and openly stared at the girl in his cabin.

His gaze made her feel as if she were Turpin's ward once more.

The silence in the room was soon shattered by the man's deep voice. "You are quite attractive. You will do nicely."

She did not look up from her folded hands.

"I do not suppose you talk much. You need not worry. I prefer women who do not talk anyway."

She bit her lip to keep from crying out. _The way he had stared at her!_

Well, if he wished for her not to talk, she might as well do so and save herself from any unwanted advances.

"May I ask where the ship is located, sir?" she asked while grinning at her deliberate attempt to irk the man before her.

"I told you to call me Adrian, girl. Come here and I shall show you where we are." He gestured to a large map that hung over his desk.

Johanna stood and made her way over to the map. He began to point out their course.

"Now, we started here, as you know, in England," he informed her as he pointed at the patch of land upon the paper. His finger trailed downward so that he was trailing the Atlantic Ocean. "We sailed upon the Atlantic and traveled towards Cape Town in Africa where we, as you may recall, docked in order to renew our supplies." He tapped the lower tip of Africa and traveled a slight bit to the right where his forefinger rested upon the ocean that lay between Cape Town and Australia.

"How long do we have until we reach the colony?"

Adrian paused and thought for a moment. "It would seem that out eight month journey has been cut short to seven months. We have been traveling at a rather speedy pace and, if I am correct, we should arrive at Botany Bay in a month, at the very least."

One month! She had endured six months and if seemed as if one more was intolerable!

Johanna fought the urge to stomp her foot and tear the map to shreds.

"I know, love," the officer soothed as soon as he detected her anger. "We shall be off of this ship as soon as possible. Have patience."

Without warning, his hand was suddenly on her collar bone. His fingers that had trailed the map now caressed her skin. Slowly, he ran his hands over her chest and began to travel downward, exploring her body in a horrid manner.

In a blind panic, Johanna smacked his hand away and stumbled backwards. She brought her arms around herself and turned from the man before him. The girl's breathing had become that of gasping attempts for oxygen.

Adrian stood quiet. "Why have you shown me such disrespect?" he whispered while wringing his gloves in his hand.

Johanna shook her head and rubbed her teary eyes until they stung. "I-I-I cannot. Please do not make me lie with you. After all of this time…and I…I do not have the strength to go through with it again!" she shuddered.

"Have you been with another man before me? You are tainted?" he demanded in a harsh tone. His expression seemed to scream the fact that she would be beaten if she told him of her past. She may have been weak then, but her broken demeanor meant nothing to anyone when it was her virginity that she had lost.

_Lie. _

"No, I was just frightened that is all. I never have…slept…with a man before," she replied softly. After all this time, she still felt like filth when she deceived others.

He sank to his bed and leaned backwards, softened by her words. "You are a very puzzling girl, Johanna. It seems that you are rather squeamish around men. Never fear, I will have you begging for me to take you by the time we reach Botany Bay. Do not worry; I am not angry with you. His voice was nothing more than a slither of bland words. He may have said that he was not angry, but his eyes told differently.

"Please," Johanna breathed, "let me return to the hulks. There is a pregnant woman down there and I swore that I would look after her."

The male on the bed shook his head. "As you wish."

The girl had never been so joyful to leave the confinements of a bedroom.

The remainder of the journey consisted of torturous visits to Officer Adrian's cabin, caring for Rosemary, and smuggling food to the less fortunate convicts. Few of the women mocked Johanna for being the "whore for the officer", leaving Johanna with others who gave her warnings.

"Be careful," an older woman had said. "Men like 'im want one thing only, darlin'."

She could not have been closer to the truth.

Finally, after what seemed like a hundred years of waiting, the day of arrival had come.

"LAND HO!" a voice shouted from above.

Johanna and the others looked about their prison, gazing at each other in disbelief. And through the utter despair of their journey, the prisoners jumped to their feet and cheered.

Women hugged one and other, men grasped arms, children danced around with jovial expressions. All was merry.

Johanna felt arms wrap around her and she could only embrace the owner of those arms with a melancholy happiness. She looked up and saw her friend Larina's shining face, tears rolling down her ghastly features.

The only ones who remained on the floor were the carcasses of the dead and the convicts plagued with sickness. The tolls of the ship's travels had taken effect on so many; it was unbearable to think of the vast numbers of people lost.

"We have made it to Botany Bay," a child squealed as he raised his scrawny arms towards his mother's skirts.

Officers began to crowd below decks, shouting orders.

"Go on, to the boat deck with yeh!"

"Welcome to paradise boys!"

With an effort to hide her smile, Johanna made her way to the decks and stared at the strip of land that lay before her eyes, even more glorious in the sunshine.

They had made it.

Please leave a comment if you liked or utterly detested this chapter. This chapter is much longer than I expected.

As of now, Johanna had arrived in Australia. Next chapter will depict the events that take place after she is brought to shore.

Sweeney had yet to enter our story. Most likely next chapter, but I am not quite sure yet.

Thank you for reading and to whom it may concern: KICK SOME FINAL EXAM ASS! (Happy summer vacation if you already have.)


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

The rowboats had been prepared for dispatch after the captain and his first officers had made it to shore. All of the convicts were now crammed onto the decks of the ship, anxious to step onto solid land once more. But none were more anxious than Johanna Barker. She stood in the hot Australian sun, wiping the perspiration that stung her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. With a shift of her dress, she adjusted the material that clung to her wet skin and held her arms to her chest.

Through the crowd of officers, the girl could make out the face of Adrian. He stood by a section of male prisoners, rigid and ready for any sudden course of action. He noticed her stares and returned the gaze. His eyes held anger, detestation, and beneath it all…his eyes held longing. A longing that causing her to whip her head towards the ocean water that foamed beneath the ship's hull and away from his stares.

Her patience was wearing thin.

"All of yeh are to step back and allow the women and children into the boats first, my dear gents!" one of the commanding officers hollered with a motion of his gloved hand.

With a hidden smile of thankfulness, Johanna pushed her way through the crowds of women and stood at the front of her section. The male convicts were now being separated from the females and held back by the officers who were put in charge of them. Few questioned their authority. Those who did had their skulls smashed by a sniggering sentry.

"Miss, if you would kindly take my hand," a kindly male guard uttered as he held his palm towards Johanna. Gratefully, she slipped her hand in his and allowed him to lead her to the boat that was hanging on the side of the ship. The other women followed suit.

"Careful, now," he murmured as she lifted her foot and placed it into the rowboat. When she was seated, he placed a gentle kiss upon her hand and smiled at her. With a wink, he turned towards the others and showed them the same humane treatment, calling them "ladies" and assisting them into the small boats as well, leaving many to wonder how such a gentleman evaded their sights during a seven month journey.

It was not long before a good portion of women were placed into the rowboats and lowered onto clear waters. Johanna lifted her hand and let it slide over the water's surface, smiling at the coolness that licked her skin and gave her a small release from the boiling sun.

To her advantage, the kind officer had been placed in her boat and now began to paddle them towards the shore, less than a half of a mile away in distance. The man struck up a light conversation, speaking mostly of the colony that they were to be part of.

"You ladies are goin' to love it," he laughed. "Our beloved Botany Bay was established long ago by folks like you. It's a ripe beauty, it is."

"Where are we to be placed?" A small girl asked as she gazed at the officer.

"Well," he sighed, "I really can't say for sure, me dear. There's the factory where you women are made to do needle work and such. Let's see, there are the separate houses where you perform domestic services."

"Yes, but where will we be stayin'?"

"Our hard workin' men have constructed barracks for you women where you will be provided with lodgings," he informed them with a kind reassuring gleam in his eye.

The shore was rapidly approaching.

"I must say, it has been a true pleasure sailing with you all," the officer added with a light-hearted grin. "Enjoy our establishment." The smile on his face vanished. "And god be with you all," he said in a gravely.

A slight bump was felt the moment the rowboat hit the shore. Johanna gazed at the sand, the water, and slowly grasped a fistful of dirt and allowed it to slip through her fingers. With a giggle, she hopped from the boat and gazed around her in wonder, receiving some chuckles from the male officers at her amusing innocence.

They were all forced to wait for the other prisoners to exit the boats and stagger onto shore. Johanna had swaggered a few times due to the fact that she had not been on land for so long. Once all were on shore, a man in uniform stood before them all.

"Welcome, prisoners, to Australia! You all have endured a right hard trip, you have, but nevertheless, I expect greatness. Now, off with you all, to the showers!"

Some moaned their distaste while others clapped their joy.

The women studied their surroundings as they were led to their lodgings.

"All of you are to live at the factories," their lead guard declared. "You will work from sunrise to sunset and you are allowed off on Sundays. Your meals will be served within the barracks and you will be provided with clothing. Before we may allow you to sleep, however, we must strip you all and wash you down. The lot of you compare with death when it comes to the stench!"

"Oh, shut your arse, git!"One of the bolder women shouted.

The officer turned towards the crowd once more. "Speaking of which, any insubordinations will result in a good whippin'! So I suggest you keep yeh mouths shut!"

Johanna shuddered at the threat and obliged to any commands that were given her. She was taken to the showers and immediately told to undress, receiving curious glances from the officers enforcing the task at hand. Her old dress was left in a crumpled heap on the floor afterwards. She was washed down and had been searched for any weapons, causing Johanna to scoff at the fact that they felt a young girl, such as herself, could be possibly carrying a weapon with her after a long boat ride. It was preposterous.

"'Ere you are, pretty thing," a smug guard chortled as he handed the girl clothes. She was given a plain dress, like the ones she had seen in London, and told to put it on and to "be quick about it". She placed the scratchy material over her head and pulled it over her body as women around her did the same.

After she was dressed, the females were led to a room where shoes were piled in heaps. They were all commanded to find a pair of shoes that fit them within the minute or they would be forced to work barefooted. Johanna rushed forward, tripping over a pair of shoes, and tore through the piles, throwing shoes about and trying them on. She found one shoe that fit her just well and went on the hunt for another, grimacing as her time ran out. Finally, she found another that was a perfect fit, though it did not match the other. With a shrug of her shoulders, she placed the two on her feet and stood.

The day had begun to grow dark. The moment the sun had set, all the women were taken to the factory. It was a three story building, ominous as it stood isolated. The insides consisted of floors of working space and a few benches for sitting Johanna noticed as she was shoved inside. Only a few lamps provided a faint source of light in the rooms. There were no windows.

"Lie down and get some rest," they were ordered. "You'll need it." A few blankets were handed around the room. Johanna did not get one.

As she lay on the hard, dirty floor with her fellow voyagers and women who were in the factory before, conversations began.

"What you in here for?"

"Ha, don't suppose you been out of town 'ave yeh? Pathetic!"

"Goddamn English."

"Hello," a dark haired woman whispered as she inched towards Johanna. "You're one of the new ones, aren't you…you and the others that just came in?"

"Yes. We uh…just arrived from England," Johanna answered in a shaky voice.

"Oh, I used to live in London. Miss it very much, I do. I am Elaine, by the way."

A violent screaming erupted from a girl on the opposite side of Johanna. As everyone jumped to their feet to investigate the reasons for her terror, they soon saw that she knelt over a dead child. A small thing with soft black hair, but her skin was as pale as moonlight.

"My baby…God in Heaven, not my sweet li'l Abigail," she shouted to the ceiling of the room. Women pushed back against the wall as a guard entered through the door. Johanna nearly tripped over a working bench during her retreat.

"Wot's with all the screamin'?" the guard demanded as he stepped towards the shrieking female.

"My child…my child," she moaned with a point of her finger towards the crumpled body of her girl.

"Dead, sir," someone pointed out.

The guard scowled. "Leave the damn child 'ere and we'll bury 'er tomorrow! If I hear another peep from you, it'll be a lashin'!" He departed with a slam of the door.

The woman sunk to her knees and placed her face in her hands, whimpering, sobbing. A few glances of sympathy were sent towards her, but they did not last long. Instead, everyone shifted away from the mourning mother and conversed in whispers.

_How could people be so utterly cruel? Was hatred all that the world consisted of? _

"You better get some rest," Rosemary instructed Johanna as she placed herself next to Elaine. "I hear that we all are going to need it."

Elaine turned towards Rosemary and sent her enlarged stomach a small smile. "You are with child?"

"Yes, the baby ought to be here within a few weeks."

"Oh…you should consider finding yourself a husband…"

Johanna turned from her expecting friend and Elaine as they spoke of the miracles of childbirth and whatnot. With a deep frown, she lay her head on the wooden flooring and stared at the walls until her eyes went heavy and the words around her were a simple blur of jumbled sounds. The shadows on the walls soon became one, engulfing her in a vast darkness that shielded her from all other sights.

_This darkness was her home…_

After what seemed like seconds had passed, her darkness was shattered by the light of day that came shining through an opened door. Women stood and moaned as their guards walked in and smiled at their displeasure.

"All you new arrivals are to gather the laundry for the men while the rest of you are to go to your needles," a man with a scar along his right cheek instructed.

His fellow officer turned towards the man who had just spoken. "Don't you think it's unwise to send the women into the men's area? It could get messy…"

The scarred man waved off his concerns. "I believe the convicts know the consequences. The new arrivals shall go to the men as planned."

The thought of the _male convicts_ alone with _her _was enough to send the girl into hysterics, yet she miraculously kept her posture and merely bit back the fear that ate at her very strength.

"Breakfast will be served at eight o'clock."

"Breakfast, after a trip of complete starvation…and you are servin' breakfast? You're a bloody marvel, sir. Full o' shit!" a bold girl laughed.

Slowly, the guard made his way towards the outspoken woman. He took her thin arm in his hand and began to drag her across the room. "That'll be enough out of you, whore," he spat as she began to screech. "I think 20 lashes should do the trick, don't you?" Her screams turned to horrendous sobs as she was carted through the door and out of sight. Afterwards, the women were eager to get to work.

Stumbling out into the blinding sunlight, Johanna walked with her fellow inmates and began to enter the areas where the men worked. They received wolf-whistles and rude sexual comments as they began to collect clothes from the men that needed washing.

"I'm sure this won't be the last time that I take off my shirt for you, love," a prisoner grinned as he handed Johanna his shirt. He lifted his shovel and continued to work. She looked away in repulsion and continued to collect clothing in a large basket.

"Collect from the barracks yonder," she was instructed as a hand pointed to a building where only a few men were beginning to pile out. The rest, she assumed, were inside.

Breathing deeply, she trod towards the barracks and approached the front of the building. A red haired man stood guard and hissed, "Just grab every piece of clothing they give yeh and get out."

With a nod of her head to hide her scowl, she entered the barracks. There were bunks everywhere and men all around were undressing, placing their boots on, and eyeing the girl with interest.

She advanced inward and gazed around, studied by all. The room had grown quiet and the movements of all had either slowed or stopped. She received a few cap removals as she stood in the entrance. The sun sent rays onto the floor and painted the room with its glorious shine. She stood among the gold, receiving gazes of wonder.

"An angel," a fragile old man gasped as he clasped his hands.

"'Urry it up," the same guard shrieked as he poked his head in and disappeared once more, sending Johanna out of her frozen stance and the men out of their trances. She held the basket out to all, an indication that they should place their clothes inside. A few offered her a smile as they placed their laundry into her basket. Others, however, were not as gentle. Some stroked her hair and cupped her cheek, laughing when she shrugged them away.

"Oh, leave 'er alone!"

One of the men went as far as to place a hand on the curve of her back. She let out a small scream and fell backwards, crashing into the chest of one of the males. Hands steadied her from falling once more and helped her steady herself. She looked towards the owner of the hands, tears in her eyes.

"I am so sorry," she began, but stopped short as she studied the man whom she had just bumped into.

The man was pale, deathly pale, and his eyes were nothing but holes of black darkness. He wore trousers and a jacket, leaving the girl only to guess how hot he must have been beneath all of the material. A white streak from stress traveled through his wild black hair, creating an odd contrast. He held comparison to death itself. Johanna could only imagine the horrors he must have endured while in captivity as his gaze caused her breathing to stop and to place a hand to her lips in shock.

"I am…sorry," she whispered, yet again, behind her fingers, making her words muffled.

He seemed to be lost in thought as he studied her, summoning one word to his lips. "Lucy?" he whispered softly as his eyes lightened. He held a hand out towards her, a sudden hope brightening his face.

"What? No, my name is not Lucy, sir. Once again, I-I apologize for…er…crashing into you like that…if you have any laundry?" she stammered as she tore her eyes from the man. He withdrew his hand and let his gaze fall to the floor. He seemed crestfallen for only a minute before the heartbreaking look in his eyes turned to ice.

"No, just…be more careful," he muttered as he turned from her and walked out of the door and past the officer outside to begin his work. Johanna stared after him, transfixed by the man. He offered a backward glance, deep in thought, until he whirled around and continued to walk forth in the sun.

"Dear old Ben's losin' his mind," she heard one of his inmates murmur in a somber voice.

Forgetting the other men's laundry, she followed him out and gawked at his fading figure. The convict had been taken to an open area and begun to work on a building that was being constructed. The other men in his barracks exited and strut past Johanna. Some made their way to the area in which the mysterious man was working while others went in opposite directions to perform a variety of different tasks.

The blonde girl stood in a trance, barely able to move until the booming voice of an officer sent her running across the yard where men worked and back to the "safety" of the factories.

As she entered the building, she noticed the girl who had cursed at the officer. She lay on the floor, her back bare with strips of bloody flesh. She had been whipped. A few others tended to her injuries as the prone woman silently wept and winced at the wet cloth that was pressed upon her torn flesh. The mother who had lost her child was sobbing in the corner. The body of the dead child had been taken.

Stepping towards an area of washtubs, Johanna dumped the men's clothes into a tub filled with water and coughed at the disgusting smell that came from the material.

"Men, they stink to high heavens," a fellow laundry woman chuckled bitterly. "Enjoy it, love."

The clothes that she had collected turned to water a murky brown. It was enough to make the child sick. She ran soap over the shirts and trousers, scrubbing until her fingers began to hurt. When she had finished, she wrung the water out, fascinated with the way she was able to make her hands work after a lifetime of nothingness.

All thoughts of the disgust from the clothes faded away as Johanna Barker thought of the agonized man. His eyes…could one be as tortured as he was? It was nearly unbearable to think on the matter. All that was left was the image of his face in her mind, strikingly entrancing for some odd reason. As she scrubbed at the men's clothing, she could only summon up the name that he had been called by his fellow convict. Benjamin.

_She had to see him again! She needed to thank him properly!_

With a smile to herself, Johanna concluded that she would express her gratitude towards the man when she was permitted to return the laundry to his barrack.

I apologize if this chapter is a bit shorter than anticipated, but hopefully the appearance of our favorite barber/ex-con will make up for everything! Please review!


	5. Chapter 5

**In relation to a comment that I have read, I must add that the chance of Johanna walking to Birmingham is unlikely. I simply put that place as her location due to the fact that I did not want her too close to London, yet I did not want her to walk the entire country. I'm sure it is understandable that if she walked to a location nearer to London, then she would have indeed been apprehended by Judge Turpin. That is my reasoning for choosing Birmingham and I thank you for your comment on the matter. My deepest of apologies if it is too farfetched, but I suppose my mind was more focused on the penal colony matter.**

**I would also like to say that I am extending Benjamin Barker's prison time. It will not be fifteen years, but not too much longer. **

**Thank you all for your reviews as well and this is chapter 5. Enjoy! **

**Chapter 5**

With a stolen smile pressed upon her lips, Johanna lifted the clean laundry in her basket, balanced it on her hip, and walked out of the factories.

The previous night had been less horrific, save the painful kicks from Rosemary's unborn child that caused the poor woman to bolt upright and grasp her stomach. Otherwise, Johanna thought the conditions of the factories to be bearable.

They worked from sunrise to sunset and meals were served at eight o'clock, two o'clock, and frequent dinners were served at six. The meals consisted of a skilly, water, and bread. If they were lucky, they received tea or scraps of meat. Luck was not too recurrent.

When she had wakened, the new arrivals were ordered to go out into the men's areas and collect as well as return their laundry. Johanna was more than happy to do so.

Thoughts of the mystifying convict occupied her mind as she walked outside and into the blistering heat from the Australian sun. Once more, there was hardly a cloud in the sky and the rocks pierced at her legs through her thin dress. She inhaled the dessert air deeply, tranquility washing over her for a stolen moment as she closed her eyes. For a split second, she was free.

The freedom was shattered the moment her eyes were blinded by the sun once more.

The moment she and the other women entered the men's yard, they were immediately bombarded with the same cruel, degrading comments that they were forced to deal with the previous day. One male convict lurched forward and grabbed a female by her waist, growling in her ear and kissing her neck.

The guards, who had been observing the women from a distance, bounded forward and dragged the man from the woman. After he was thrown to the floor and savagely kicked, the women were ordered to continue their work and to "stop trying to provoke a sexual response from the men". Many stood, horrified that they were being blamed for the crude comments and attempts that were forced upon them.

Though Johanna shared the same repulsion, she bit the inside of her cheek to keep from speaking brusquely and forced her thoughts to remain focused upon the man whom they called "Ben".

_She should think of what she was to say to him!_

"Er," she quietly practiced, "thank you, sir, for your kind assistance the other night. I…I really appreciate it and if there is anything I can do for you…"

_No! She sounded like a complete fool! She needed to take a more casual approach. She needed…_

The man's barracks now stood in front of her with the same sentry keeping watch outside. She nodded her head towards him in an attempt to lift his usual bitter mood. He ignored the gesture and gave forth a bored sigh. "Just do what you need to do," he droned with a roll of his eyes.

"My thanks," she replied. The door opened to reveal nearly the same sights as yesterday: The men dressing, the boots laying about the floor, the curious eyes that studied her.

Summoning up more courage than she had before, she boldly took a step forward and began to speak in a clear voice. "Hello," she started to stay, but fell silent as the gazes from the men began to test her bravery. Men grinned and stood straight, a new interest developing within them.

"Why, 'ello, sweet darlin'," A bearded man laughed. One of his inmates chuckled and threw a shoe at the bearded man's chest.

"Ha, since when 'ave you turned into a nice gent, John?" the thrower of the shoe chuckled as he bent to retrieve his boot. He stumbled slightly, yelping as his leg gave out.

"Fuckin' leg," he muttered in a voice heavy with pain.

Johanna dropped the laundry basket and sprang towards him, lifting the boot from the floor. The agonized man straightened, wonder etched in his face as she held the shoe towards him. His pain seemed to have vanished as did any of his hostility.

"Here you are, sir," she said softly.

He gazed at her for a while before slowly reaching forwards and retrieving his shoe. "Thank you, Miss," he whispered.

She smiled at his astonishment. "Of course, sir."

Turning away from him, she retrieved the basket, silently wondering why every man in the room was gaping at her as if she had saved the man's life instead of retrieving his boot.

The very man held the boot loosely in his bony fingers. "Uh, the name is Robert, Miss. You needn't call me "sir". What's your name?"

The girl looked up from the basket, surprised that he actually took a friendly interest in her. "My name…Here is your laundry by the way," she said as she began to distribute the clothes to the ragged men, "my name is Johanna."

From nowhere, the convict that had stolen her thoughts emerged from behind a group of males. Dark eyes gleaming, he rushed forward only to slow after realizing his entrance was a bit too abrupt. The man averted his gaze to the floor, studying the floor boards with an intense concentration.

"Ben, ain't Johanna the name of your daughter?" the bearded man inquired as he leaned against the wall and ran his hand through his hair.

"Yes," the man replied quietly. He did not look up from the floor. "It was."

"How old is she now, Ben?"

"What is the month?"

"This month? Well, judgin' by wot I've been 'earing, it's August."

Benjamin gazed at the outside sky through the opened doorway. "Her sixteenth birthday was the previous month, July."

Johanna stared at the window to her right. She had no birthday month, for Turpin never spoke of it. He simply stated a date when he said they would rejoice, refusing to comment on any other matter. Perhaps he did not know, perhaps he was simply being cruel. It did not matter, for she was far away from him now.

Yet, a sting of envy arose within Johanna. This man, a common criminal, held more care for his daughter even though he was on the other side of the world! Benjamin's eyes had betrayed his emotions, clearly depicting his complete adoration for his girl, causing Johanna to fervently desire a father of her own. It would never become, though. The closest thing she had to a loving father had not even the right to be called such.

After the brief pause that came with her deliberation, she returned to her laundry and held the clothes out to the men for them to grab. Johanna thought of her previous experience and silently questioned why the men were not trying to harass her with their comments. Their silence seemed to be more questioning than their previous advances towards her.

After she had finished issuing all of the clothing, she studied the empty basket in her hands. "Does anyone…have any laundry they want to…have cleaned," she asked her eyes still downcast and away from Benjamin.

"Yes, we do. You may call me John," was the reply as the bearded man threw a shirt into the basket. "Don't let any of these rascals get to yeh. Yeh just tell 'em that John will give anyone a good skinnin' that gives yeh trouble," John concluded with a wink.

She offered him a weak grin and turned to the ghastly convict. "Benjamin…sir," she murmured in a soft voice, "would you like me to wash anything for you?" She avoided staring at the dreadful white streak that traveled through his black hair.

Benjamin's face hardened as he studied the slight fear in her eyes. "Well…_Johanna,_" the name gave him obvious discomfort, "if you really wish…you can wash….this." He handed her a dark jacket and withdrew his hands after brushing her pale fingers.

She accepted it with a broad beam. "Thank you, I shall return as soon as I can!" The smile still remained as she collected the rest of the men's clothes.

"We hope you do, little lady," Robert laughed. His laughter sounded cheerful; a chuckle that had not been heard for many long years.

As soon as she had finished she made her way to the exit. Johanna stopped at the door, her back to the men. "I would like to thank you, Benjamin, for showing such kindness to me yesterday."

He stood, solitary, staring at the back of the child. He did not reply to the comment. With a thrust of his hands into his pockets, he welcomed the silence that filled the barracks and fought the urge to stare into the girl's compelling eyes.

Something about her was so odd, so captivating. A familiarity that had plagued him since the moment he had laid eyes upon her face, an agonizing comparison to _her. _ The familiarity of Johanna, the way her eyes reminded him of none other than his angel. The angel that had haunted his dreams, reminding him of the life he once had. His Lucy's face, it was always there. Now, it existed within this girl. Within every word she spoke, every breath she took, it was his wife. And with each observation he made of the girl, he remembered.

"Thank you all," she added over her shoulder before stepping out into the sunlight once more. Johanna allowed herself to stare behind her shoulder at the faces of the men. Most were entranced by her virtue, unable to turn away. Others turned on their heels and away from the girl's figure, suddenly reminded of their distant families and their own poignant loss.

Benjamin was one of those men that turned away from the unbearable eyes of the child that summoned so much pain. With a trembling hand, he rested his palm against a wall and shut his eyes. The quiet of the barracks was then filled with incoherent words, leaving Benjamin to assume Johanna had returned to the factories. Sighing, he buttoned his shirt towards his collarbone, wishing that the thought of the girl did not bring forth the name of his estranged daughter.

She could a few men call after her. "Come back soon, little lady!" This brought a giggle to her throat and a grin to her lips.

While on her way back, she managed to grasp a piece of bread that was handed to her by a guard. "Eat up, you don't want to miss breakfast," he had commanded her. She expressed her gratitude and dragged the filled laundry basket along the way. Soon, the men began to fade and women were more abundant in the yard. She had reached her destination safely.

A few of her newly made friends greeted her upon entering the building, some that she knew while others, she could barely remember meeting. She recalled a few of the names of her fellow laundrywoman. Helen, Alice, Rose, Pearl, all of which were genuinely kind women, though they all were rather outspoken. Few were quiet as she was, but most showed her an amount of hospitality that was enough to deter her fear in the only place she would ever consider a home.

Repeating the same ritual as the day before, she dumped the clothing into the washtubs and began to work. The day's work was filled with conversations consisting on three particular subjects: men, the children, and the distressing tasks at hand. Not many spoke of their past, afraid of conjuring up painful memories or uncontrollable tears that stung their sun-burned skin.

Johanna's hands had begun to burn from the soap that entered her wounds. She would moan and continue to work through the biting pain. She had even agreed to help Rosemary with her work due to the fact that the woman was in distress from pregnancy. The woman's ankles had been swollen for some time, increasing the agony for the poor woman. The extra work for Johanna had her exhausted by lunchtime and nearly collapsing to the floor by seven in the evening.

It was then that the officers had come.

Johanna yelped and bolted upright from her bench, startled when the doors to the factory suddenly burst open. Guards filled the room, laughing in shrieks, and flirting with the women. Some females had already attached themselves to a guard, ensuring their protection and well-being as long as they pleasured the officers. Some, Johanna heard, were even married. Those women clung to the necks of their partner, snickering in their state of profound pleasure.

"Everybody line up against the wall," the rest of the woman were ordered. Johanna wrapped her hand around Rosemary's arm and pulled the woman to her feet, assisting her to the wall where women had begun to stand.

"Wot are you goin' to do to us?"

"Touch me, you fuckin' bastard, and I swear…"

Johanna stood as her heart pounded in her chest. From above, she could hear the pounding of feet from the women on the second floor whom were most likely receiving the same treatment.

_What _were_ they going to do to them?_

The male guards began to travel down the line of women, staring at them into the faces of each individual. They joked as the insults rolled off of their tongues, almost as natural as their own breathing. The uniformed men grasped the faces of many, spitting into the refusing women's faces. When a guard had chosen a woman that took his fancy, he grasped her by the waist and pulled her from the line of women.

One woman made the mistake of slapping an officer. She was taken by the hair, thrown to the floor, and kicked in her gut until she begged for mercy, for death.

It was then that Johanna saw the face of Officer Adrian.

The guard noticed her almost immediately after her eyes rested upon his tanned face. He walked towards her with a bounce in his step. He seemed to enjoy the growing terror that was shown in her face. It amused him.

Dark eyes laughing, he stopped in front of her. She refused to show her horror with a sweep of her head away from him.

"I helped you. This is the least you can do for me," he told her.

She looked up to him, repulsed. "What exactly is it that you want from me?"

Adrian smirked. "Is it not obvious?" he asked with a raise of a dark eyebrow.

Johanna shook her head. "Please specify your intentions," she replied coolly.

"You are to be mine. Tainted or not, you are to live with me and serve me. Do what I say and all shall be well. If you do not, well…" his voice trailed off. After a shake of his head, he brought his hand around her waist and pulled her from the line.

She pushed against his chest, wincing at her own weakness. The officer stared at her pitiful attempt to escape his grasp and snorted in disgust.

Few others were chosen as the guards began to leave with their _possessions. _As Adrian practically dragged Johanna to his cabin, she struggled against his strong arms, sending sharp blows to the hands that held her. Each time she would do so, he would shake her body until her teeth chattered and her stomach churned with nausea.

He carted her through the yard where the men were at work. Convicts, whom Johanna had recently met, looked up at her in somberly. Some of their gazes held pity while others held recognition towards what was happening to her. It was obvious that they had seen such behavior before.

"Stop shovin' 'er like that! She's a child," a voice shouted whom Johanna recognized to be John. He grimaced as Adrian ignored the order and continued hauling the girl off to his cabin.

They all looked at her as if she were being dragged to the gallows.

Johanna then noticed Benjamin. He looked up at her from his work, eyes widened as he observed her being dragged in the officer's arms. He had dropped his shovel and gaped at the scene before him, suddenly angered to the point where he bent forward, picked up the tool, and grasped its handle until his knuckles had turned white. His gaze was nothing short of enraged.

It was then that Johanna ceased her struggling and walked with Adrian. To see Benjamin in such anger was enough to calm her to the point of walking beside the officer in civilized manner. But her cool manner could not stop the fear that gripped her heart with a fierce hand.

When she came to the man's cabin, he walked forward, opened the door, and pointed inside. She needed no further instruction.

Johanna scurried inside and pressed a hand to her throbbing head as the door shut with a thud behind her. The girl could hear footsteps behind her, but she could not bear to turn toward the man who stood to her back.

"You know, you are making this more difficult than it has to be," he mumbled as his hand traveled through her golden hair.

She shrugged away his touch with a jerk of her head. "Do not," she demanded, as her anger abated into horrid terror again. "Please, do not."

"I told you, after all I have done, this," his hand travelled to her stomach, "is the least you can do in return."

Johanna turned to face Adrian. "What if I told you that I was not pure? Would you still wish to have me then?"

He shrugged. "Of course I should have expected that from a convict. Your beauty replaces any impurities."

"I…used to have sexual relations with another man. A powerful judge," the girl announced in an attempt to dissuade him.

The officer paused in his movements. "Well, that is interesting, it really is. Now, be cooperative and allow me to do as I wish." The moment his hand came upwards once again, Johanna retreated from him and backed into the wood of the doorway in which she had came in.

"I cannot do this, please. Do not make me. Do not make me. Do not make me," she chanted. Her eyes squeezed shut and tears began to fall from beneath her lips. Shaking, Johanna was overwhelmed by the thought of Turpin. The way he had held her, the way he had brutally _claimed_ her.

Adrian pulled from her leaning position and held her wrists in his hands, jolting her until her eyes opened. "I want you," he growled. "Cooperate or not, I will have you!"

Thoughts whirled in her head. "But if you attempt to do such without my approval, your commanding officer will have you punished. I heard a man say so himself. Rape…is unacceptable, he said." Johanna smiled to herself.

_He would not touch her now!_

This made Adrian stop and think to himself. "I suppose you are correct in saying such. However, I can earn you approval very easily. My interest in you is so great; I will do whatever it takes to make you mine. With a little persuasion, you will be begging me to have you."

His words made the child forget how to breathe. "What…are…you going to do to me?"

"Well, you must be punished for attempting to harm me. I suppose I will place you in a prison of your own until you give in to my demands."

He was going to lock her away until she agreed to lay with him!

Adrian pushed her outside and shoved her to a building. "Seeing how terrified you are of men and their advances, I see it fit to lock you inside of their barracks. Perhaps a few nights with them will persuade you to stay with me," he snarled as he opened the door to the building.

With a sudden accuracy, Johanna recognized this to be the building where she delivered laundry to everyday. This was where Benjamin was staying as well as John, Robert, and many others.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a fist that was sent crashing into her head. Johanna slammed into the wall of the barracks as the usual guard outside laughed at Adrian's blow to the girl's head.

"Adrian, ha," he chuckled as he opened the door of the building for her.

Adrian grabbed Johanna and threw her into the barracks, chuckling as convicts looked up at her in curiosity. Of them, Benjamin stared at her in shock.

"Gents, this here is Johanna. She will be staying with you until she agrees to my conditions of living. Feel free to do what you wish with her in order to speed up the process." The officer then slammed the door, leaving Johanna on the floor of the barracks with a group of men staring at her slumped, yet vulnerable figure.

**In case this needs explaining, Johanna is being locked in the barracks with men until she agrees to live with Adrian. Adrian hopes that the men will hurt her until she is begging him to take her back. **


	6. Chapter 6

**You guys and your reviews! Ha, you all are the best ever. And in response to a comment from Angle 1, you hit this chapter's summary right on the nose! Thank you all.**

**By the way, it is true that officers did place women in spots such as men's barracks for punishment as well as solitary confinement. They also shaved women's heads or placed iron collars around their necks. Pretty harsh, but there you are, a little fun fact!**

**Chapter 6 **

The world was a complete blur. Distorted visions of shadows engulfed Johanna's mind as she sat, limp and confused. The feeling of complete exposure had never been so profound in her life.

_What had happened to her? Why did her head feel as if she had been slammed into a pile of sharp rocks? _

In an attempt to stand, she thrust her hand forward and placed her arm on a wall for support. She squeezed her eyes shut and exerted all energy towards her legs with a groan of pain. What surprised the child was the fact that she had made it to her feet, only to crash down to the floor when darkness claimed her sight and the painful pulse in her head returned. What was even more of an upset was the shriek that passed through her lips as she fell and the moan that came afterward. Through her sightless agony, she heard a man speak.

"Come, we have to lend her a hand."

Her vision may have failed, but Johanna's hearing certainly had not. The faint tap of boots walking upon hard floor was heard through her darkness. Terror seized Johanna the moment she had heard them. With another shout of fright, she shrunk away from the sound of the footsteps and placed her hands over her head. Tears flowed out of her eyes without end as the memories hovered over her consciousness.

_His hands, his black eyes, the pain, the ignorance she was forced to live with! _

"I wasn't goin' to hurt you," the voice assured her, cut off by her sob of hysteria. With shaking hands, she pressed her palms to her eyes, squeezing her lids shut until her eyes were sore.

"Please, don't. I cannot anymore, it hurts me," the blonde cried, unaware that she was speaking to the man of her hidden fear, her forbidden secret, rather than the occupants of the room she was in.

"You think the officer 'ad his way with her?"

"Well," a raspy reply came, "from the looks of it, he placed her in here so she would be with him. Perhaps someone before though…"

"He gave a good hit to her head. Suppose she's going to pass out?"

"From the looks of it, she's goin' to be sick!"

The words from the men did nothing but worsen the feeling in her stomach. Johanna pressed against her stomach with a clenched fist and bit on her tongue until she was sure that she tasted the tang of blood. Perhaps the pain from her wound would deter her strong urge to vomit.

"She's goin' to be sick and that's the last damn thing we need. Someone get 'er up 'fore she loses her dinner," a harsh man ordered.

"No, she's comin' around. Give 'er a minute."

The one positive voice was enough to grant her the strength to open her eyes and study her surroundings with a clearer accuracy. Men had gathered around her and gaped at the scene before them with opened mouths and curt shakes of their heads. Johanna gazed at her body, ashamed of her pitiful display.

"See that! She 'as opened 'er eyes now; I speak nothing but the truth," an older man exclaimed as he pointed a dirtied finger in her direction with a smile of accomplishment. Apparently, he was the owner of the kind voice that gave her the stamina to stand. Wordlessly, she thanked the man.

As she came to her senses, Johanna recalled the night's previous events. Hoping to provide herself with a distraction, she stared at the small window to her side. She noticed the sky had lost its sun and had replaced her with a cloudless night, stars gleaming around the brilliant face of the moon. The sky had her entranced by the utter beauty that it emitted.

_Could a glorious night such as this shine so magnificently when it only provided light for the negative elements of the world? _

"Come child, if you are well enough, and sit over here. You need to move away from the door," John ordered as he beckoned her over from a section where other convicts were seated.

"I…I…am not so sure," she stammered, though she began to stand anyway. Her knees slackened and she fell to the floor with a huff. Few men wheezed out a chuckle which soon subsided as her breathing went from labored pain to potent despondency.

The door to the barracks moaned as a harsh wind tore through the air. Thinking it was the officer back to attack her once more, the girl plunged into wordless cries and feeble pleas. The men, this time, leaned backwards and allowed her to continue with her frenzy until her tears had abated.

"Sometimes, they just need time to cry," the man named Robert stated as he sat upon his bunk with a sigh, placed his palms on his thighs, and waited for the girl to gain her composure.

Johanna's sobs soon turned into that of small whimpers. Absentmindedly, she grasped her knees and held them to her chest as if her scrawny legs were the only thing shielding her from the men's' penetrating stares.

"Now," John began with a soft, reassuring smile, "come over 'ere and sit by us."

_Was he attempting to gain her trust?_

Johanna stared at the door with a look beyond fear. The terror in her eyes, the extreme horror of what she knew was waiting for her. It was a look of such dread, the men in the barracks felt the pace of their hearts quicken just by observing the girl's face.

Still, John remained persistent. "That officer ain't going to come 'ere no more tonight. You are safe. Please, straighten yourself out and sit by me." The convict lowered his voice with sincerity. "You have nothing to fear."

His words held enough benevolence to provide Johanna with the courage she thought had left her long ago. A more determined look in her eyes came as she stood with shaking legs and hobbled over to where John stood. She placed herself in front of him and waited for further command.

"Good," he commented with a smile. "Have a seat, darlin'."

That courage had been taken as the teen noticed the hunger within the gazes of the prisoners. After a moment of deliberation, Johanna concluded that the men must have been a state of deep desire after they saw a helpless girl thrown into their prison.

"I don't need to sit," she protested softly. "I…I feel like standing."

John shook his head. "Of course, but when you come crashin' down, you have permission to sit by me."

As if he had predicted the next series of events, Johanna's legs shook with a trembling quiver until she did fall to her knees. Staring at the floor with wide eyes, she shifted her body closer to the convict and remained subdued.

"There you are," he said in a knowing voice. "Could've been easier if you sat in the first place, little lady. Now, what's our kind laundry gal doin' in a place like this?"

Not hearing the question, she took in her surroundings. She detected a few whispers around her, sighted a few mischievous grins, and immediately welcomed the distrust that she had clung to with whomever she met. The gazes pierced her, stripping her dignity until she felt as if she were nothing but an object, a tool.

_The men had no other intentions. They only wanted one thing from her and then they would leave her, alone and broken. Just as her guardian had, the one man who was supposed to protect her._

The thought of her guardian added to the discomfort. A young girl surrounded by deprived male convicts as a form of punishment.

_She was as good as dead, for if she was taken by any of these men, she would kill herself. Life was too difficult to entertain._

A morbid grimace was placed on her face as she imagined the satisfaction she would feel once she was dead.

_An endless peace, a never ending tranquility surrounding her for the duration of eternity._

"Girl, if you don't stop digging' your nails into your arm like that, I'm goin' to have to knock you out."

Johanna snapped out of her miserable thoughts and stared at her arm, slightly surprised that she indeed was clawing at her skin in a form of self mutilation. She pulled her nails away from her flesh.

"I am sorry, I did not realize…" the girl explained, but quickly gave up due to the fact that she was not the least bit concerned of what the men thought of her. They were going to end up shattering her world no matter what and their thoughts of her would only consist of how enjoyable she was.

"Yeh got a nice bruise on yeh 'ead," Robert pointed out as he stood from his bunk. "Are you feelin' faint or anythin' like that?"

_Why did these men act like they cared?_

"What does it matter?" she snapped in reply, losing all control. "You are all going to end up taking me, aren't you? Speed up the process, as the officer said. Well, aren't you? You are all not just another group of men with the same repulsive desires, the same selfish advances?"

The group seemed rather taken aback. Benjamin, who had remained with the group without being sighted by Johanna, exchanged glances with one of his fellow inmates.

The silence in the room was punitive.

Johanna sighed and leaned against a frame of a bunk. "I…I mean no offense," she stammered until falling silent. Shrinking away from their gazes, she stared at her arm which had taken a few bloodied cuts.

"You should sleep," John suggested after a few seconds of the silence. "You need rest. We all do."

A man from the back of the room stood abruptly. "I should think that some of us are in too much of a passionate mood to actually let her_ sleep," _he concluded with a jut of his chin in her direction.

_This was it. She was finished._

The man had ruffled blonde hair and clear blue eyes she realized as he made his way towards her. Silently, she scolded herself for actually caring about what the man looked like. It did not matter.

With a hopeless bow of her head, she bit her lip and readied herself for him.

_The footsteps! They were approaching, rapid as death! It was the end, surely she would die! _

His hand lifted her chin up towards his face, roughly. "Come 'ere," he spat as his fingers lifted her upwards and to her feet.

John, as well as a few other convicts, stood as well. "Put 'er back, James. She has done nothing to have wronged you!"

James laughed and lightly toyed with a lock of her blonde hair. "No, she hasn't." He deeply inhaled the scent that came off of her tresses. "She is just so…tempting."

A strangled whimper came from the back of her throat, widening the smile on the convict's face.

From the opposite side of the room, Benjamin had stood on his feet and stared at the unaided girl, anger swelling inside of his chest. A certain protection for the girl had him clutching his fists and breathing deeply, irately.

John's nerves had snapped. He strut towards James and pushed him backwards.

"I said no, damn you," John roared.

His shove made James stumble backward and lose his grip on the girl. She slipped from his tight arms, weeping as he gained his footing and began to indulge in his desire to have her. Slowly, he came behind her and lifted his arm. His palm rested on the back of her neck as his fingers wound around her throat.

"Yeh don't want to see wot 'appens to a pretty girl when I'm pushed about, John. Nothing good will come of it," the crazed man threatened in a low voice.

John took a step back. "Don't harm her."

Disregarding the comment, James pushed her against a wall with a child-like giggle.

She stifled a cry, thinking of the two people in the world that had loved her as she tended to do in her times of weakness. Johanna Barker thought of her parents, thought of their faint faces that lingered in her mind long after the sun had set. Their blurry expressions were a consolation to her then and a release to her now as she stood with a hand around her neck.

"James, we ain't goin' to say it again," Robert commented as he limped over to the group of standing prisoners. "Let 'er go. I'm not goin' to stand around and watch you 'arm a young girl. She's done nothin' but help us. Release her."

One question remained: _Would her parents be happy to see her succumbing to this man without a fight? Would they be glad to see her in a state of submission such as this? _

She had answered her own question: _No, her parents would want her to fight this. To battle the darkness or die doing so!_

In a single moment, Johanna leaned forward towards her attacker and pushed him back with all of her strength. This time, he tripped and fell to the floor. With a look of complete astonishment, he stared at the girl who had jostled him.

"Ha," a young prisoner with a scar on his cheek laughed, "beaten by a girl. Bang up job!"

"You…are…a puny bitch!" James barked as he flew to his feet, flushed with embarrassment and boiled anger. Without wasting a single second of time, he rushed over to the girl and began to pound his fists over her head. The blows, however, did not last long.

Pandemonium broke lose as John and his followers tore James off of his prey and sent punches into his gut. Johanna leaned back into the wall and allowed her head to throb with a pain greater than she had ever felt before.

"Yeh worthless piece o' shit, come 'ere," a male screeched as he pummeled James in the gut.

"Wot's the matter? You can hit little girls but you can't handle a few hits yourself?" someone hollered as he sent his own series of batters to the man.

After a few minutes, John raised his hand. "Alright, stop. We're going to kill him if we keep this up. Let the bastard catch his breath."

A few sighs of dissatisfaction were heard from around the room, but the men backed away from James and wrung their hands rather than pounding the man.

"She does not look any better now," one of the assailants remarked. Johanna was staring downward, breathing heavily through clenched teeth, whimpering from the second set of blows she had received.

The gazes of triumph morphed into gapes of pity as the men studied the girl. She had sunk to the floor and was moaning in pain, barely capable of taking in what had occurred.

A soft melody escaped her lips as she cried to herself. The song was inaudible to most, but her lips moved and the whispers from her mouth could be heard by those who were closer to Johanna. She recalled herself singing when _those_ nights had refused to end, when hate had been her only companion. She sang without concern and lifted her head, her eyes taking on other sights.

_She was outside in the sunshine, held in the arms of her blonde angel as her the male angel beamed at them. He produced a small flower and twirled it in his fingers for her to observe._ _The angels were her parents and they watched her now! It was springtime, a period of life and new beginnings._

With a small laugh, she lifted her hand and twirled her fingers around to the beat of her song. Johanna had not the slightest idea of what she was singing, yet she could make out one word: bird.

_A bird was free, happy little thing. Why could she not be? _

"We need to move her to a bed," a voice said. "She's goin' mad."

Before she could understand what was happening, Johanna felt arms wrap around her and lift her from the floor.

_The blonde angel wept as her husband was dragged away from her. The woman then gazed at the child in her arms and was enveloped by darkness, just as her lover was. _

As Johanna began to realize she was being held, she ceased her soft singing and allowed the tears to flow. The lights in the room appeared to swirl around before her eyes until she felt the surface of a bunk beneath her body. The arms released her. Curiosity made her look into the face of the man who had gently placed her onto a bunk.

She soon stared into the face of Benjamin.

"Ah, Ben, you are a bleedin' saint," an acquaintance of his chuckled.

With a sigh, Benjamin knew he should think of ways to comfort her, but could not. He did not smile at her, nor did he find the sincerity to speak of her safety now that she was there. He only found the power to watch her face with a hidden sense of protection deep within his mind. She looked back into those eyes; nearly certain she was staring into the face of the male angel that had watched over her for years. With a trembling hand, she stroked his face to convince herself that he was actually there.

Silently, the man indulged in the fantasy of staring into his wife's face. Seeing the child beaten in a manner such as that was almost like watching his wife endure the same treatment. The same pain that came with it was as if he had gone to hell and endured all sorts of tortures while standing there and watching the girl in her moment of distress.

_When had he begun to care for the child? Why did she have to look like Lucy with such a torturous similarity? _

But those eyes in which he stared were not his wife's. Yes, they were the same color, but the eyes of the child did not hold the same virtue as Lucy. The depths of Johanna's blue eyes depicted true horrors. This child knew fear and its complexities.

Her small hand now rested upon his cheek, cool to the touch. He wanted to pull her fingers away and send a hit to James's face; give the bastard the same pain that he had to a defenseless girl. Instead, he hovered over Johanna and allowed her to continue caressing his face. The dazed look in her eyes convinced him that she was not well, persuaded him that she was merely confused. Yet, her blue eyes held recognition in them, a familiarity.

Was it he who remembered her from somewhere or was it she that was remembering him?

The girl's head swelled in the areas where she had been hit by the officer and the prisoner. How could a man bear to hit a young girl and think nothing of it? Did the world have no morals?

The thought of the cruel world that waited outside reminded him of the man who had sent him to this very prison. Judge Turpin, a tyrant of the law, sent him there on a false charge without even a second thought on the matter just as he had done to many of his other convicted mates, or so he heard. All hated Judge Turpin here and their loathing would gain them nothing. But, what had happened to Lucy? What of his daughter? These questions, that he feared would never be answered, haunted him with every moment that he spent in Botany Bay.

Lucy. Johanna. He could not help but wonder if they were faring without him. Sadness claimed his heart as he thought of His child. She was a young woman now. Silently, he had begged his distant Lucy to tell their daughter of him when he had first arrived in Australia.

_Please, Lucy, tell my daughter that I love her and I am proud of her. I miss you both so much, please, understand that, I beg you. And know without a trace of doubt that I did nothing to have wronged the law. I will come home again, this I promise you._

After the melancholy thoughts towards his loved ones had ended, he embraced a coldness that seized his soul. Benjamin now frowned at his moment of weakness. The only fragile point in his life was the well being of his family, and he was across the world from them.

After a while, the girl before him let her hand drop to her side. She could see nothing else except Benjamin. It was as if a void had been filled, as if the world held a piece of virtue that she never had experienced, no matter how hard she had searched.

And no matter how hard the man tried, he could not bear to look away from her face. Words could not begin to express the frustration he felt when he thought of his daughter and imagined the convict girl that lay on his bunk. His daughter should not share any comparison to this girl, save their names. It angered him, and yet, his anger abated the moment he stared into the eyes of the child or spoke in hushed tones to her. He felt susceptibility when he was near her and a sudden desire to protect Johanna. Perhaps he wished to shield her because he had failed to do so for his own daughter.

A faint rustle was heard from behind him, reminding the pair that there was a group of convicts with them in the room as well.

Benjamin turned his head and stared at James, who had been slumped on the floor. The filthy convict sat up and wiped a bit of blood from the corner of his mouth. Johanna noticed him as well after gazing around the arm of Benjamin.

"God-damn," he muttered. "Didn't get a good enough hit to kill the girl, did I?"

Without a single hesitance or even consideration over the act, Benjamin lunged towards the man. A single crack was heard throughout the room as the enraged convict sent a single blow to James's head. He stood over his victim as the man fell forward, unconscious.

"Er, Ben?" the same friend of his started to speak. "If you wish to speak medically, I do not think that was entirely helpful for James in his fragile state."

Ben stared at the man, his breathing labored. "At least it is _I_ who is feeling better."

John chuckled and slapped his hand on Ben's shoulder. "Well, he had it coming to him," he stated as he shook his bearded face at the cataleptic prisoner. He then turned to the other men. "Let this be a lesson. Don't touch the girl or I, and me good supporters, will do yeh in."

Some men spat on the floor and looked away, disappointed.

"Why do you care?" An obvious friend of James questioned in a sharp voice.

"Because I had a family of me own, Will, a loving wife and a beautiful son. To see a child in pain, now is that right? To be the cause of that pain…Well, I suppose you can say I have a little thing called morality. If you leave the girl alone, then you share that morality as well. What do you say we do the humane thing and not what we long to do?"

"No woman in my bed for nine years and you expect me to abide by that rule?"

John stroked his beard. "You can always sleep with the head officer if you're that desperate," he suggested with a grin, lightening the grim way in which his words were spoken.

Laughter erupted throughout the room.

A male stood and handed John a flask. "Bless yeh," he murmured as he took a swig.

Benjamin, at this point, had seated himself on the floor in front of Johanna's bunk. He did not sleep, nor did he feel the desire to. Every time he attempted to do so, he was troubled by the riveting laughter of his wife, the cheerful gurgles of his baby girl. It was too much to bear. Each night was spent staring at the walls of his prison, dreaming of his family.

But now, his stares were directed towards any man who allowed his gaze to linger on the girl that he was positioned in front of; his silent threats were enough to deter even the strongest of men.

John placed himself next to Benjamin as did Robert and a few others.

On the bunk, Johanna stared at the shadows of color that had claimed the ceiling. A black blur traveled around in circles, capturing her attention and forcing her eyes to remain on its path of darkness. She stared at it as its trail moved back and forth, up and down, until it traveled to the far side of her vision. As she turned her head to follow it, her head was overwhelmed with pain from the smacks she had suffered. A soft moan escaped her as she slapped a hand to her head.

The men below heard her whimper and some stood to investigate. Benjamin managed to grab a flask that was being handed around the room. As he unscrewed the cap, he returned to Johanna's side.

"Drink," he ordered as he handed the flask to her. "It will help you sleep better."

Her thoughts were fixed on his words. Drink? She then noticed the container he held in his hand.

"What…is…it?" she questioned while reaching for the container. Her hand began to tremble with fatigue while she held it, nearly sending the liquid spilling on herself.

"It's…Harry, what is this?" he inquired as he pointed towards the flask that Johanna held.

"Spirits," Harry responded without looking up.

"Oh, Spirits," Ben answered Johanna as he waited for her to drink.

After a moment of thinking, she finally asked, "What are spirits?"

A corner of Benjamin's mouth turned upward. "Most likely gin," he clarified.

She nodded her head and began to guzzle down the liquid. At first, it was a welcoming way to quench her parched throat until she finally moved past her thirst and tasted the beverage. She puckered her lips and made a face at the bitter taste. With a thrust of her hand, she pulled the nozzle from her lips and stared at the bottle in disgust.

"From the looks of it, I am goin' to guess it is gin," he added.

Johanna stared at him with a slightly cross expression before holding out the flask. "Thank you, I suppose."

Crushing his urge to chuckle at the girl's humorous inexperience, he took the bottle from her and handed it back to Harry.

"She's not much of a drinker," Harry noticed as he pocketed his drink and shuffled over to a bunk.

The alcohol had begun to take its effect after a few minutes. Soon, the colors of light faded into total darkness. The pain had subsided, granting her serenity and a rapid yearning to sleep. Benjamin's form sunk to the floor and ultimately disappeared from vision.

The last bit of audible conversation that Johanna Barker heard was a man's faint voice instructing his mates to get some rest as well before another hard day of labor begun.

**Well, that was chapter 6! I hope you enjoyed it and please review as you have done many times before. **


	7. Chapter 7

I must say, your review have shown very deep consideration. I agree that it is very ironic that a good amount of the prisoners in the barracks have more morality than most of the officers. It is true, for officers were known to be corrupt and prisoners were usually sent on a false charge or a minor offence such as stealing food. Thank you for expressing your opinions, they mean so much.

**Chapter 7**

The blessed darkness was Johanna's home, her sanctuary. Here, nothing was entirely real and everything was mellow, a tranquility that she never could find when she was imprisoned by her guardian, when she was shipped off because of her starvation. All was graceful, all was hers.

But like the blissful feel of happiness upon her sore heart, the peace that came from her darkness could not remain.

A strong set of hands were felt upon the girl's arm. The hands began to shake her from the depth of her sleep, ending the darkness and bringing forth the cruel sting of sunlight to her eyes. The owner of those hands was Robert.

"Come, little lady, a new day has begun," the man instructed her with a slight smile that soon faded to a grimace.

Barely able to contain her shriek of pain, Johanna struggled to a sitting position. Her head pounded from the alcohol and hits she had obtained the previous night. As if that were not enough, her vision blurred with exhaustion.

Her feet swung over the side of the bead and she grasped the post of her bunk in order to stand. Robert, who had assisted her all the while, brought his arms around her shoulders and steadied her wobbling body.

"Thank you, Robert, sir," she murmured gratefully as he released her and allowed her to stand on her own. She swayed for a moment and gazed at her assistance.

"Pleasure is mine, miss," he replied with a wink. Robert than scratched his hair of short dark brown hair and turned on his foot. He walked with a greater difficulty today.

John noticed her stares were directed towards Robert's limp and stood by the girl.

"Got it broken in a laboring accident," he informed her with a shake of his head. "Been limpin' ever since."

Johanna stared into John's gloomy face. "Have they not tried to cure him?" she questioned in a concerned voice.

"Even if they cared for our well bein', there wouldn't be much that the officers could do." John studied at her clothing wrinkled from sleep. "Sunday is only two days away, you know. We get the day off and the women get to change their clothes. Try to make it to then, little lady. You are goin' to be just fine, you are."

The girl looked away from John's face to hide the tears that were beginning to form, stinging her eyes. "Yes, sir."

"That's a gal. Now, get ready for the day. If that officer Adrian comes by," the convict stopped to think, "tell 'im that we treated you horribly but you refuse to stay with him," he added before nodding to himself in approval and turning to walk away.

With a sigh of confusion, she called after him. "Why would I ever say such things to him?"

He turned to reply over his shoulder. "Because if you tell 'im that we treated you horribly then 'e will be content with you stayin' here as punishment for your refusal. It's best you stay here where you 'ave a sort of protection." After his explanation, John turned to his inmates and began to throw his boots on along with the rest of the men.

A bang was heard at the door, signifying that someone was there. Everyone looked up and eyed their visitor, Officer Adrian. He smiled at Johanna and placed his hand on the doorway. After a moment of studying her ruffled dress with a light in his eye, he began to speak.

"I trust you find your new home to your liking," he sneered at her.

Johanna could have laughed at the statement. "No, it is horrible," she answered while following John's advice and fighting the urge to smile at her thought-out lie.

Adrian's stood straight and stared intently at the girl after her remark. "So you will agree to my conditions then and leave this place?"

"No, sir, I will not."

His face went from light hope to sudden black anger. "Then you will continue to stay here until you do so. And you shall take up the needle instead of laundry."

At the thought of the stinging needle, she could only shudder slightly and succumb to his orders. "Of course I will," she retorted with a forced smile. "I love sewing," Johanna muttered through a spiteful smile.

A few of the men chortled at her comment.

"That is good," he stated, detestation dripping from his words, yet longing bursting from his stares as he clenched and unclenched his large fists.

The flask holder Harry gave a delicate smile. "I like sewing too, sir. Would you let me take up the needle so that I may fix my dress, my dear sir?"

A vein bulged out of the officer's neck. "No," he snapped. "Anymore comments will result in the crank machine!"

"Your dear old mother was a mighty fine crank machine," a hidden voice snickered.

This time, crude laughter filled the barracks without limits. Men hooted at the insult and imitated an old woman receiving improper motions.

In order to distract himself, Adrian stepped forward and caressed Johanna's cheek with the pads of his fingers. He stroked her cheek with forced delicate motions as he burned her skin with the hatred from his eyes.

The laughter fell silent.

"What am I goin' to do with you?" he breathed in a voice of attempted seduction. "You locked in here with these rascals."

"We can here every word you speak, sir," a nearby prisoner said snidely.

The teen girl leaned her head backwards and away from his touch. For a moment, the odium in his stare was so profound, she was sure that he was going to strike her down for her refusal.

Instead, he inhaled deeply, tore his eyes off of the girl, and stared at the prisoners. "You been treating the young woman with respect, gentleman?" he questioned with a grin as if he knew the answer.

"Sure, good sir, you throw us a woman and she gets more respect than you can imagine, sir. The hell she does," one of John's friends chuckled, though he gave Johanna a hidden look of reassurance.

Just about every man was following John's plan.

Adrian laughed himself. "Try not to break her, I should like something left when she returns to me," he concluded before exiting the room and strutting to his post.

A harsh revulsion wrapped around the girl's mind until she clutched her fists in a tight grip and gnashed her teeth together. This time, the tears were not fought.

"Little lady, don't let a son of a bitch such as him get to yeh," a man, whom she did not know, comforted her. He looked after the officer who had departed and sent spittle flying in his direction.

After a brief second of pity, she brought a smile to her lips and turned towards the door. Rushing forward, she advanced only to stop at the doorway and stare at the sandy floor. Her thoughts drifted away from where she was, leaving the men to only guess what she was thinking.

"Sewing," Johanna exclaimed as she lifted her head. She then opened the door and made her way to the factories through the heat of the landscape, ignoring all who spoke to her, glaring at anyone who even suggested the thought of touching her.

The factories were less crowded after the officers had taken the handsome women for themselves, Johanna noticed as she entered the building. Still, women were at work, speaking of nothing other than their repulsive remarks and hostile disdain. Nothing had changed.

The women inside greeted her with curiosity while others did so with concern. Immediately, she was bombarded with questions while she walked over to an open bench.

"Why are you back here?"

"Did the officer warm you up, darlin'?"

"Where did they take Helen?"

To these questions, she could only push her way through the crowds of females and sit herself down. There, she took a needle from the table she sat in front of and brought a piece of clothing into her hands from a pile of tattered materials.

The questions soon died down, leaving the blonde in solitude with a sewing needle as her only friend. And this particular friend was the only one she had when she had resided in Turpin's prison.

The moment she thought of the days she had spent sewing in her bedroom, she was suddenly sickened by the task of sewing and felt a strong desire to fling the materials across the room; to curse the day she was brought into the merciless world.

Of course, though, she did not.

Elaine slipped through the crowds of women and made her way over to the girl, placing a tentative, but gentle, hand on her shoulder. "Did they harm you?"

Johanna smiled slightly at her motherly concern. "No, I am fine." Johanna silently monitored the swarm of females. "Where did they take Rosemary?"

The woman exhaled as her hand tensed. "Rosemary was taken to the hospital where she will be bedridden until her child is born." Her large eyes assessed the sitting Johanna. "But what has happened to you, dear?"

With a frown, Johanna poked the needle through the clothing and began to sew a holed area closed. "Nothing has happened. Please, I am most content. "

The woman shrugged off her concerns and sat next to her. Without speaking, the pair sewed well into the hours of the day, only pausing when meals were served.

Hands trembling from her aching head and overwhelming fatigue, Johanna worked on the remains of one of the men's jackets. She gasped when the needle in her hand slipped and plunged deep into her flesh. Johanna pulled the sharp end out of her skin and continued to work, the cuts coming more and more frequently. Red droplets of blood seeped into the clothing, covering it with crimson blotches.

When she had finished, most of the articles of clothing were decorated with her blood.

The laundry woman frowned when Johanna offered the finished clothing to be washed. "'ow am I supposed to get all that blood out with soap and water, you bleedin' idiot?"

"Cold water should help, I believe," the girl replied coolly.

The woman nodded in consideration and took the clothing from the girl's scrawny arms. "If it doesn't come out, you are to blame," she added as she threw the fabric into her tub and began to scrub, turning the washing water a sickening rust color.

The Baker child did not respond to her remarks and returned to her bench, waiting for the moment the sun would set and she would be permitted to return to the men. In her mind, she actually preferred the men over the women, though she had been attacked by their fists and insulted with their hurtful words. The men seemed to protect her; those who were her friend, portrayed loyalty and consideration.

The sky was now exhibiting a brilliant sunset of bloodshot rays and soft pink clouds.

Johanna stood from her bench and walked to the door, slowly.

"Where are you goin'?" an outspoken woman called after her with her hands on her hips.

Johanna turned and faced the female with a hardened expression. "I am to return to my punitive lodgings," she remarked before stepping outside and closing the door behind her, disregarding the gasps of wonder that came from the lips of the women, the utterances of doubt.

Most of the men were returning to their barracks after another difficult day of work. Johanna noticed this as she rushed past their hulking bodies, laden with pain. It seemed that they did not notice her due to their complete exhaustion and need for rest. It was a distraction to them. The mornings were always the liveliest moments for the convicts and their rather offensive remarks.

Johanna came up to her barrack and hesitated outside the door. This place housed criminals, and of them, she had made friends. She shook her head at the complete absurdity of her life. A year ago, she was a useless girl sewing in the window of her bedroom and gazing at the distant town. And now, she was in Australia, living with convicts. It was a bit of a jump.

She slipped in silently, noticing that the men were having their dinner served to them. She was given her own bowl by a lone server who filled it to the brim with a sticky porridge. The thick liquid barely made it down her throat. Johanna coughed as she forced the food into her stomach in deep hopes of restoring her energy. It seemed that her body was rejecting everything she did that day.

_What was wrong with her?_

When they had finished, the men sat together and began to converse. The familiar flask was passed around, refilled with liquor. Men took swigs at the alcohol with jovial remarks.

John sat near his mates, smiling as he usually did behind his tangled beard. "Now, oh there you are, little lady," he stated as he noticed Johanna on the opposite side of the room. "How was the needle?"

Johanna burrowed her slashed hands deep into the folds of her dirtied skirt. "It was a…different sort of experience, sir."

"I can imagine," he chuckled warmly.

He did not comment further on the matter. "I believe that last night was such a…_experience_," he offered her a light grin; "you never were properly acquainted with your new mates."

Johanna gazed around her. "I suppose not," she agreed with him as her eyes rested upon faces of familiarity.

The convict spent a good few minutes pointing out the names of each of the men, purposely skipping James and any other men who might have given her any trouble within the past few days. They did not seem to care and took on a conversation of their own, secluded from the others.

When John reached Benjamin, he fell silent, astounded by the way the girl and the man stared at each other.

"That is Ben, as you know. Er, Johanna?" he questioned with a wondering expression.

Benjamin had leaned forward and openly gaped at Johanna, his own thoughts whirling in his mind.

_What had happened to her before she came here? Why were her eyes so tortured?_

Benjamin avoided gazing at her deep eyes for fear of being lost in them, but eventually lost the internal battle. With increasing intensity, he swam within the depth of her blue eyes, silently begging for her to answer his questions.

_Who are you and why do you remind me of the ones I care for?_

It was as if she knew what he was asking, as if she was asking the same. For this, he hated her. He hated her for her virtue, for her kindness, for her utter beauty. This girl would destroy him if he did not know more of her past. He would be tortured by the past memories if his craving for knowledge was not answered. Benjamin could not look away; he was far too concerned now.

The girl placed a finger on one of her cuts. Gently, she massaged the area and thought of anything that would distract her from the compelling gaze of Benjamin.

The man decided to begin his interrogation. "You are from England?" he began without taking his eyes off of her face.

"Yes, I lived in London."

"Anywhere in particular, an address perhaps?" he continued.

The girl paused in thought. "Well, my keeper mentioned something about living near Hyde Park…so I think that I lived near there, I really cannot say for certain."

"How old are you?" His questions grew harsher and more demanding as he continued.

"The last birthday I had…It was my fifteenth. It has most likely been more than a year since then, so I can say that I am, or just have turned, sixteen, sir," she informed with a dazed look on her face.

"Well, since we are partly on the topic, Johanna, not to be rude, but why is a charmin' girl, such as you, in 'ere?" John asked while passing the flask to another man who reached for it.

"I stole, John, sir," she answered with less difficulty than she had imagined. The words seemed to have flowed out of her mouth as if they had been on the tip of her tongue in the first place.

The men seemed surprised. "What did you steal?" Robert inquired.

"…Bread."

There were a few groans around the room.

"I am sorry," she began in a panic. _Were they angry with her?_ "I was hungry, I had just run away! I had nothing left, I was dying! I did not know what to do!"

The words did not come so easily.

"Calm yourself, love," John soothed her. "We are not one to judge. It seems a disappointment, you see, you're only a child."

She relaxed a moment and summoned a question that she had always yearned to ask since she had met the man.

"May I ask why you are here, sir? You are so kind, it seems impossible!"

John scratched at his beard, "I suppose it's only fair I answer your question. I was sent 'ere because I robbed a rich gent to pay for my son's medical expenses."

John arrested for the crime of caring for his son. This crime of love did not surprise Johanna in the least.

"Why would you run away, though? Not a smart decision, if I may say," he asked with a stern glance at the girl.

_This was the one question she could not bear to answer! The emotional burden that came with it, this was far too much!_

"I would rather not say, sir. I am sorry, but it is a private matter," she whispered, her face stiff, secretive.

John furrowed his brow, but paid no heed to his curiosity towards the matter. "You have any parents, little lady?"

Warmth coursed through her rigid body at the thought. "I did." Her reply held more sadness than she had wished to present.

"I am certain that they miss you."

"I miss _them_, sir."

John sighed and rested his head against a wall. "Then why, pray tell, would you run away from them?"

"It was not them I ran away from," Johanna answered with a gaze at her mismatched shoes.

"You are not making any sense, girl," John replied with an irritated sigh.

_She might as well ease a bit of their curiosity. The questions will never stop!_

"I ran from…my guardian. My father was taken to prison when I was an infant, resulting in my mother's suicide. I am an orphan, sir," the girl explained while fighting the grief that claimed her heart as she told of her tale.

"Oh," John fell silent before speaking. "I apologize, didn't mean to pry, little lady."

Something inside of Benjamin died as he sat back and stared at the ceiling.

_Her parents were dead! Should his suspicions be confirmed, should not his curiosity cease? Why was it his hope that he felt was the one dying? _

"Yeh know, your father could be alive, seein' that he was only taken away to prison," Robert pointed out.

It was true that Johanna had considered this. Not long ago, she would have defended her father to the death over the matter, claiming that he indeed was living and they would someday be reunited. And yet, reality was still like a harsh slap to the face.

"No, I do not think so." The girl felt her shoulder sag. The urge to cry had been more powerful than ever at that moment as she sat, dreaming of the people in the world that she could have called her own if the Fates had not ripped them apart.

John noticed this and began to stray from the topic of the current conversation and bring forth a happier one. "Do you remember anything of your parents?"

A blissful smile touched the child's lips. "I have been told that my mother was striking. My guardian said she had golden hair and soft eyes that pierced his heart. She was extravagant…rather small stature as well." Her gaze fell forward. "I know nothing of my father, though; save the fact my guardian hated him…that did not need any explanation. Whenever he spoke of the vulgarity of my father…well, never have I seen so much detestation in a man's eyes."

"My son was named Edward and my wife was Ruth," John informed her with a soft sigh as if he was not actually looking at her, but someone far off, someone that was not actually there. He returned to the people around him after his companion waved a hand in front of his eyes. "Do you know your parents' names?" he started with a frown towards the man at his side.

"I was never told their names."

And yet, memories of distance came to her mind. She stood and walked up to the window, placing her hand on the smooth surface of the glass. The night was slightly cloudier, but the light from the moon still penetrated the gloom.

"I remember them, though," Johanna said as she traced the stars with her small finger. "My mother would sing softly to me on nights of storms. My father, he had brown eyes, beautiful brown eyes. They were in love, this I am sure of. They loved me…no matter what _he_ says." These words were directed to herself more in a form of assurance than remembrance.

"What was your guardian like, dear?"

The suspicion in the voice of Robert was strangling.

Johanna breathed in a shaky breath of air and spoke. "A tyrant of the law, uncaring, improper, selfish, and lustful…" Her speech broke off with her quickened breathing. "I will not speak anymore on the matter, except that he hated with a passion. I stole the bread for the same reason I ran away from him: The desire to survive."

"That sounds quite dire."

"Lustful, you say," John questioned as he examined his bruised arm.

Biting her tongue, Johanna took her place on the floor once again.

_Why had she said anything?_

Benjamin was now to the point where his own breathing was erratic, barely able to control the shaking that plagued him the moment the girl had spoken of her parents.

_The familiarity, it couldn't be! How could he not have seen it before? Was it truly…?_

"Johanna," Benjamin swallowed in order to gain his ability to speak once more. "I know that your guardian…did not speak of your parent's names, but," he paused, "do you happen to know your true last name?"

The girl stared at her bruised hands. "That was one of the few things my guardian did tell me, sir," she replied quietly.

Heart pounding, the convict continued. "Would you tell me your last name, Johanna?" he asked, near begging.

She nodded her head. "My last name is Barker, sir. Johanna Barker."

All surrounding minor conversations stopped, men gazed at the two of them in open mouthed shock. John bolted upright and gazed at the girl as did Robert and Harry and so many others. Benjamin fell backward, causing him to thrust his arms behind his body to steady himself. His widened eyes frightened the child to a point of terror.

"What is wrong?" she questioned as she shrunk away from the men.

John stood and walked to the girl. He stooped down to her level and began to speak in a soft voice, sincere, but quivering. "It was just a shock to hear your last name. Ben here," he gestured to the stunned convict across the room, "he has been with us for years." John held Johanna's limp hand in an unsteady grip. "Fifteen to be exact…taken when his daughter was only a year old."

Benjamin looked at the girl, the floor, and the girl once more.

"Benjamin has a daughter by the name of Johanna, as you know, most likely the same age as you are now. He had a wife as well, which holds exact comparison to the description of your mother…Lived in London, too."

Johanna scrutinized John's face. For once, she had begun to fear him.

"'e told me all of this when 'e cam 'ere. I don't forget, Johanna."

Johanna pulled her hand away from his and stood straight. She gazed down at John, horrified. "What are you saying, sir?"

John stood to her level. "I think you know, love," was his answer.

With a whirl of her head, she studied Benjamin. "It-He cannot be my father. He is gone; I do not know where he is! Please, this is not funny in the least."

Frowning, John shook his head. "I don't suppose I mentioned the fact that you both share the same last name."

Johanna let out a cry of shock and pressed a hand to her head, throbbing beyond belief. Breathing was almost impossible, thoughts were a dream.

"You both go by the last name: Barker."


	8. Chapter 8

Hey everybody! I just wanted to say that I have changed the story's rating to Teen. All that you have read is just about as extreme as it will get, so I believe that you can all handle. If you do have any concerns and wish for it to be changed back to teen, well, let me know and I'll see what I can do for you.

Other than that, please review and Happy late 4th of July!

**Chapter 8**

Father.

The word barely held meaning throughout Johanna's whole life. Turpin was not her father, no man had ever attempted to reach out towards her and fill that void in her life that had always been there. She spent her life with no mother and certainly no father. Parents were but a memory, fathers were meant for her imagination and her imagination alone.

And now, she stared at the man who claimed to be her biological father.

When her last name had been spoken by John, she felt all feelings suffocate her with their gripping power. Overwhelmed, the unconscious state of her mind could only produce one word: Father. The word that had held no meaning, that brought only envy and longing.

The moment someone began to speak, the thoughts, the feelings, everything returned her to the very spot in which she actually stood.

"Johanna, say something, love."

The girl shook her head in a jerky fashion, holding back the tears of shock, the whimpers of inaudible disbelief. She had gripped the wood of a bunk and used as support during her state, and now she gawked at the face of Benjamin.

Benjamin Barker.

"Wot do yeh know?" a convict by the name of Jack, chuckled with a broad grin. "A family reunited inside this godforsaken prison!"

Johanna opened her mouth to speak, but words came out in a series of gasps.

John stood by her and held her arm in his hand. "Come, little lady," he whispered with a small smile pressed upon his lips.

After a moment of struggling to speak, she was able to grasp the ability to do so. "How…is it possible?"

Benjamin Barker stared at the girl, wishing he could grasp the small body in his arms, longing to do nothing other than hold her, comfort his daughter in her moment of distress.

He _had never felt this way before! Suddenly, after years of torture and distress, he wanted to hold a young girl in his arms and comfort her? Was the Australian desert getting to his mind, truly driving him mad? _

Standing to his feet, Barker made no attempt to hold her. The horror on the child's face was too profound; the thoughts of incredulity in his mind were too immense.

John sent Benjamin a hidden glance of _what the hell should I do?_

When he received no answer, John turned to Johanna and spoke to her once again. "Your father, my dear, it's your father! Come now, this is a good thing." He gave her arm a small tug.

"A good thing," she repeated through her quivering breaths. She had not moved from the spot where she stood.

"Yes, now…er…walk to him," John instructed her, rolling his eyes at the weakness of his assistance in the situation.

With a slight quiver and a gentle push from John, she stumbled forward and stood before Benjamin Barker.

She stared at the collar of his shirt. "Is it true?" she questioned softly.

The men had fallen so silent; their breaths seemed to disturb the stillness of the building.

The look on her face was enough to break the heart of her supposed father into pieces. She held such doubt, such distrust in her eyes. It was painful to gaze into her youthful face.

"I don't quite know myself," he confessed. "Not much proof, you see." He looked away from her sad, even hopeful, eyes and focused on a piece of wood that was sticking out from the wall.

She nodded in response.

John stood next to her, a hand on her shoulder. "Could there be something you can identify her with, a birthmark, perhaps?"

Ben shrugged his shoulders. "There is nothin' that I can remember." This added to his great frustration. _He should remember! Fifteen years of labor should not have erased the memory of his family!_

Johanna bit her lip. "You don't remember your family?"

"It is," he inhaled, "very hard to remember them. You would not understand." He turned away from her completely. "It cannot be you."

A tearful shudder was heard from her. She sent a look towards John. "Please, tell me that this was just a sort of cruel joke, John. Please, I beg you tell me that you are lying."

A painful silence lasted only for a while. "Johanna, I would never deceive a person in such a manner," John assured her, somberly.

She swallowed a deep sob. "Is it that I am not good enough, Mr. Barker?"

Now she was criticizing herself!

With a harsh sigh, the man slapped his hand on the wood of a bunk. "I don't want it to be you!" Almost immediately, he regretted his outburst.

Johanna bowed her head with a small, "I understand."

John stepped forward and hissed under his breath, "Damn it, Barker, you're 'urting 'er now!"

Benjamin stared hard at John's stern face with a challenging stare.

"It is not what I want, John!" he muttered through gritted teeth. Nearing the point of violence, Ben stepped around John and began to speak to Johanna.

"I mean if it was you…that would be…fine, I suppose…but you had just said your mother killed herself. Should I really hope to have you as a daughter if my wife is dead in return?"

"I am not sure of that, my guardian…he may have lied to me, sir," she tried to convince herself as well as Benjamin.

"No, it cannot be…it just cannot," he chanted, avoiding the desire to apologize to her for his harsh words. Apologize for crushing her hopes.

Retreating into the cold depths of his soul, he found the dark strength needed to stare at the child without a trace of guilt. _He had seen men shot, hung, tortured, and beaten. He himself had been infected, whipped, mercilessly clobbered, and tortured! The crank machine, the Three Sisters post! All had produced so much pain, countless agony; watching a little girl cry should not affect him in such a manner! _

Tears splattered the wood of the floor, hidden by the tips of her shoes. Johanna refused to say anything more; her heart would burst if she did so. This is what she deserved for hoping to have had a father, a remnant of her family.

"Enough of this," Robert declared, taking Johanna and sitting her down. Gently, he rubbed the tears from her eyes. Benjamin shifted his gaze away from this scene, slightly jealous at the fathering affection the man was showing her. His hate soon smothered the envy, turning his body rigid.

Yet, even when his soul could ward out the feelings of sorrow, they could not abolish the retched curiosity that plagued him.

Mr. Barker wordlessly walked forward, knelt in front of the girl, and held her shoulders in a cold grip. "What was the name of your guardian? Who took you?" was the question.

Her body gave off a tremor beneath his hands. His studying gazes noted the hesitation within her.

"My guardian…was a man by the name of Judge Turpin." The name was like acid on her tongue. To others, the name was like an omen, the name of a forbidden creature that brought death whenever uttered, even in the slightest of tones.

"That son of a bitch…was your guardian?" Harry demanded harshly, his hand clutching the flask harshly.

"Yes, sir, for all of my life," Johanna admitted, shying away from all of their eyes. "I am ashamed of it."

"Nothin' to be ashamed of, little lady, it ain't your fault," John soothed her, sitting on a bunk nearby. "Mr. Turpin convicted nearly every man in this room. Must've been 'ard livin' with the likes of 'im, aye?"

"Yes, sir, it was difficult…"

Benjamin stared hard at the red eyes of the girl.

_Turpin. Had he convicted him and then taken his daughter away afterward? The hate that she had described her guardian to possess, it could only be so, could it not?_

As his thoughts took flight and his gaze rested within the depth of the girl's eyes, he began to see. He saw his Lucy beneath the pain and the agony. He saw the happy, bouncing baby beneath her suffering. The carefree shine of her eyes were now dimmed, but so beautifully virtuous, so pure though she had experienced so many untold horrors. Within those minutes of deep study, he could think of nothing other than his daughter. As their skin touched, he knew the truth. The girl was his, the joyful child now a broken young woman.

"I am so sorry," he breathed. The apology was directed towards many things; from the way in which he dismissed her being his daughter to his utter failure as a parent. Through these words, he expressed the heartbreak within his soul since the day he had been dragged from his family, his home. With those simple words, he begged for so much, forgiveness and love being the very first desired.

"You are him…my…my f-f-father," she stammered.

He simply nodded in response. His heart pounded inside of his chest until the beating rang in his ears. Never had he been so frightened.

She could only cry at this, a mixture of joyful laughter and pitiful sobs. Burying her face in her hands, she allowed the tears to slip through her bruised fingers. Then, with a blissful giggle, Johanna lifted her head upwards and gawked at her father's face, tear streaks decorating her dirty cheeks.

"It is you," she stated in awe. "All this time…and you have been here with me."

Hesitantly, she placed her hands on top of his resting on her shoulder. This time, it was she who observed the depths of his eyes. After a moment she spoke again, quietly, fervently, "My angel."

Upon hearing these words, he smiled slightly, raising the corner of his mouth upward.

_He had been called many names over the past fifteen years, but in all honesty, angel had never been one of them._

She closed her eyes, and leaned her head forward. For a moment, Barker thought she had fainted. Instead, she placed the crown of her head on his chest and clutched his fingers in her small hands.

"Now, ain't that a sweet sight?" a voice sighed.

"Harry, will yeh 'old me…Just for tonight?" Harry smiled and sent the speaker a playful punch in the gut, flask still in hand.

_Was this truly happening? Had he truly been reunited with his baby daughter after all of these years? _

As Benjamin sat, unsure of his movements, he wondered to himself.

_Would the simplest touch harm her? Johanna…she seemed so delicate!_

Wincing upon hearing sobs coming forth from the girl's mouth, Ben did what he could do comfort her. Awkwardly holding her to his chest, he attempted to speak in comforting words. She did not respond to any of his expressions, only weeping.

"Oh, Johanna, why are you here?" he questioned under his breath. _The bastards were sending children here!_

"Why," she shuddered, "are you here?"

_Would she honestly understand her convict father was transported on a false charge?_

"I-breathe, love, breathe in," he instructed as her moans turned into the struggle to breath.

Johanna nodded her head, closed her eyes, and spent several minutes focusing on regaining her breath. After she had done so, she repeated her question, eyes remaining closed as if in preparation.

"I…was convicted on a false charge."

The look she gave him! Was it spiteful doubt or unnerving shock?

"A false charge?" she questioned, wide eyed.

"Yes, Judge Turpin, evidently your guardian," he spat, "sent me here on a false charge." He scowled at the thought of her detesting her own father due to a vulture's lie. "Please believe in my words," he added, near the point of begging after observing her wavering face.

"I do not think I would question the fact that that my _previous_ guardian would do something so immoral. It-is-simply-who-he-was," her words were broken up by cries from deep within her chest.

She removed her hands from his fingers and clutched at the lapels of his jacket until her knuckles were white from the pressure of doing so. After a while, her slight weight concerned him to a high extent.

_Had she been eating enough?_

Her bones seemed to jut out from beneath her skin, sickening her father to the touch.

_He would take care of her now, even if it cost him his own life. What had happened to her?_

"Johanna," Ben spoke after his daughter's muffled sobs had subsided. "You must sleep."

Her face popped up, worried. "But if I sleep, you will not be there when I wake! He was never there, those nights and I was alone. Do not do that to me."

As the father assisted his girl to her feet, he assured her that he would stay by her side until the morning for as long as possible. He had been nearly convinced that she was raving on as if she was insane, yet he tried to push those thoughts away. When he placed her on his bunk, she remained unsure.

"Please," she implored. "I have so many questions; I cannot lose you again, not again." She pulled herself to his chest once more and a jumble of words was heard within the fabric of his shirt.

Gazing at her golden head, he murmured, "I will not leave you…I-I-I swear it. Any questions will be answered tomorrow."

"No, don't go anywhere, don't go, don't go," was her childlike reply, though her accompanying cries were that of an experienced old woman's.

"Reminds me of my girl," Robert muttered as he rubbed at his leg. "I'd give anythin' to be in your position, Ben."

"I don't want her right now. Not 'ere, not this place," Ben snapped as he held his child's limp figure.

"Least you know where she is, what she is doin'. Now that she is with you, 'er father can protect 'er," Robert explained as he limped to his bunk. He did well hiding his grief-stricken expression.

Without saying anything more, Benjamin Barker agreed with the man. Wherever they were, she would be protected.

John stared at the pair from his bunk, only speaking when Benjamin began. "Thank you, John. I really… owe all of this to you," he stated as he sent the blonde head a quick glance.

With a poignant grin, he said, "Think nothing of it."

At this time, many of the men had stood after witnessing the reuniting and turned to the comfort of their bunks. Some even took the time to smile at the girl in their companion's arms who had recently fallen asleep.

The faint lit cabin had fallen asleep and the late night conversations took place. Convicts spoke in low voices, speaking of their own families after the distressing remembrance of them.

Benjamin marveled over the idea of fatherhood, over the paternal instinct that had gripped him after realizing that he stared into the eyes of his daughter. The years had been so long, he imagined himself to be useless. The hate he had felt, the way it vanished the moment he realized that this girl was his.

A slight moan was emitted from her lips as she grasped at the man's jacket. To the convict, he had always imagined sleep to be a time of tranquility. A time where nothing was real, only a blurred reality or at least, that is what he imagined it to be, seeing that he rarely slept. But his daughter's face held nothing of peace. Her eyes were squeezed shut as if she was in pain and every so often, she would whimper a cry.

_Was Lucy truly dead? Or did Turpin simply lie to keep the girl from finding her true mother?_

Johanna stirred within his strong grip, breathing rapidly.

_Why had she run away? What had provoked suck a response out of her?_

Tears form the girl began to soak the material of Mr. Barker's clothing. She had been crying in her sleep.

There was one question that haunted the man, filling his mind as the night raged on, the uncertainty worse than any other torture that he had ever experienced.

_What had Turpin done to his daughter?_

His mind had taken too many sickening ideas. He had seen too much for those ideas not to have been considered.

The man finally placed the girl flat on her back. His gaze was only directed towards her strained face, his concern was only for her welfare. Never had he known to love so strongly before in his life. Not for anyone, save his wife…

_Lucy._

The remainder of the night flew by quickly, almost too quickly for Mr. Barker's liking. The nights had always been agonizing hours of helpless ignorance, unable to grasp his memories. Now, he wished the night to continue on forever, so long as he held his daughter.

When the first rays of daylight had begun to grow, the men rose from their bunks and readied themselves for the last day of labor before their day off of work, their groans filling the early morning still. Benjamin roused his girl with a slight shake. He held her forearm in his palm, frowning when she wobbled upon standing.

"Did last night...did it actually occur?" she questioned as she studied her father with an unsure glance.

With a huff, she staggered backwards and into his chest. He sighed and straightened her, replying, "Yes, I believe it did."

She smiled at this, not a broken smile, but a whole, joyful, glorious smile. It stunned him beyond thought, beyond any doubts he had held.

Barely able to tear his eyes off of his girl, Barker placed straightened out his shirt, wrinkled from the night. He had not even taken his boots off.

Slightly sore, he stretched himself out and prepared for another day of labor. Yet, his thoughts could only remain so focused. Every second that passed, he would glance towards Johanna and assure himself that she was truly there. With every past moment, his eyes would only rest on her, powered by the same paternal protection he felt for her. She stared back into his eyes, a striking statue among the bustling men.

When a small knock was heard from the door, the movements ceased just as it had the day before. Johanna, fearing that it was Officer Adrian once again, ran to her father's side for protection. Barker took a step forward in front of the girl, prepared for anything.

_If it was that officer, he would not touch the girl so easily this time!_

A young woman stood in the doorway. A strong wind ruffled her light red hair, glinting in the sun with streaks of blonde. Clear green eyes stared at all of the men. Her tanned face did not hold gentility nor did it show friendliness. These eyes were icy and unfeeling.

"I am 'ere for your laundry," was her curt statement. With a hand placed on her hip, she threw a laundry basket to the floor. "Any soiled clothin' shall go in there. Do not waste any time, now."

"Feisty thing, you are," James said with a raise of his brow. "I should like to see you more often, dear." He raised a hand to stroke her skin, somewhat surprised that she let him.

"Anymore strokes, sir, will require a handsome fee," she laughed as she pushed his hand away. "And I assure you that I do not come cheap."

"I have not any money," he retorted, disgusted. "How the hell am I supposed to pay you for your services?"

"Oh, there are many ways, dearie," the girl cackled.

"Well, this is god-damn wonderful, it is. A demanding, prostituting laundry girl; just what we all need!" Jack moaned, sarcasm dripping from his words.

James, along with a few mates, reached towards the girl, claiming how they did not need money to have their way with her. In return, the girl sent a sharp kick to one of their shins and leaned against the wall, staring at the door where the guard sat just outside as a reminder.

"Bleedin' whore," James spat after he threw his shirt inside the basket.

"James, yeh really don't quit, do you?" John asked in a weary tone with a shake of his head.

Few men gave suggestions to the girl, receiving studying glances and obnoxious laughter in return. Johanna had thought that the girl would have received more touches from the hands of the men as well as more attention. Her words were so spiteful, though, so appalling, by the time the laundry had been collected, the convicts were more than ready to see the girl take her leave.

"Yeh got a name, girl?" a burly con questioned her as the woman picked the filled basket from the floor.

"None that a filthy pig like you needs to know." After a defiling glance, she trod out of the cabin.

"Oh, little lady, you're a real gem, you are," Robert chortled, clearly pointing out his obvious distaste for the new laundry girl.

"I think I shall do my own laundry in the harbor. With luck, the sharks will get me 'for that girl does," John's friend, Samuel, joked.

Since then, Benjamin had not moved from in front of his daughter.

The time had come when the men were ready to file out and start their labor. Benjamin now stood before his child, silent, waiting for her to speak.

After a few seconds, she did. "Have…a good day. I will see you tonight, then." Her words were tainted with false cheer. Behind this, though, he could sense her misery. Perhaps she was upset when it came to the fact that she had to leave him, or it could be her rejection of actually seeing him again.

The possibilities were endless, and he hoped and wished with all of his strength and being, that she indeed cared for him just as much as he did for her.

Turning for the door, he followed his comrades outside without a word towards the girl. All the words in the world could not express his thoughts, nor could they show his feelings. Not enough words, there were simply not enough.

She tagged along into the sun. "It's hot out, don't you think, sir?" she asked him as he made an effort to hide his grimace from such formality she used towards him. It was as if she were treating him like a stranger now.

"It gets hotter, you know, this is actually Australia's winter," he notified her.

"But," she gasped in disbelief, "it is August!"

"Yes, I know it is odd, but our hottest months are London's winter months. It is quite confusin', you will understand in time."

The pair came to the point where the father had to head towards the laboring area where they were building a house for a settling family and the daughter had to make her way towards the factory where she would spend the day sewing tattered shreds of material. This was the parting point.

"Well, I suppose I already said goodbye, now didn't I?" she giggled with a shy smile. He gazed at her, dumbfounded by her beauty when she was blissful. The harsh reality of the day ahead made him nod his head towards her and walk towards the construction site.

His figure, as well as the other men, became slightly smaller as Ben walked away from his girl. She did not turn to walk away, though. No, she watched after him, the smile vanished from her lips. Nothing existed within her except desire. Rocking on her heels, she looked towards the men, worrying her bottom lip.

Desire is what sent her running across the field towards her father. Guards stared at her in slight shock as she rushed forward, pushing through crowds of men. When she made it to her father, she threw her arms around his torso from behind him. His body went stiff as she held him, his head turned towards her.

"I love you, sir," she breathed, searching his face for a sign that he felt the same. All she could detect was fear.

"Please, Johanna, go to the factory. Don't stay here any longer," he commanded her as he held her hand within his own. "It is dangerous." Guards inspected the pair with narrowed eyes.

The nervous way in which he stared at her seemed to generate unease inside of the girl. "I have questions that must be answered. Will you promise to do so tonight? I will need your word, please," she demanded.

Benjamin sent the sentries another worried stare. "Yes, yes, I promise you. Now, please, go, Johanna."

Their hands only parted when Johanna stepped away. "I thank you," she added. She sent him a troubled gaze before bounding across the field and away from the men.

She was a lost child, grown physically, but deprived emotionally. Johanna held no outer knowledge of the world besides its cruelties. She needed guidance. The girl needed a liberating light in the midst of her depressing darkness.

He would see Johanna tonight. They would confront each other on the matters that troubled them, he would question her past and she would his. This was expected. The answers, however, were unpredictable. And that fear of knowing, that fear of understanding the pain that dampened his child's innocent eyes was what fueled him. The thought of feeling his child's pain as his own is what made his tools come down upon wood with a harsh cracking sound. The day would pass, but the anxiety would not. The sudden thought of his child ceased the hatred for only a moment, only to return when his thoughts traveled to all of those who could have and had wronged her.

Again, the same dreaded question: _What had Turpin done to his daughter?_

As his hands splintered and bled, his heart beat fast with fury. He had to finish his work; he had to see his daughter.

And the thought of his daughter was what kept him going.


	9. Chapter 9

There is not much I can say to you readers and reviewers except that I thank you all with everything I have. If it weren't for your comments, I would be nothing. Thank you all so much, I am flattered. So in return, I give you all chapter 9!

**Chapter 9**

Dust accumulated among the fallen tools as the convicts were called back to their barracks. Benjamin staggered along with the rest of his working mates to their lodgings, separating from those who went elsewhere. Of those who remained, most were trustworthy acquaintances of his. Not that he had the energy to make deep friendships. It was far too dangerous. One morning he would wake up, his friend perfectly fine, and the next, an empty bunk would take his friend's place. Men died each day, but he could not afford to die. Not now, not when his daughter needed his protection.

His red-rimmed eyes searched for his daughter among the barracks, frantically. Pushing past the men, he tore his way around the cabin, near the point of panic when he could not find Johanna. Only when John placed a hand on his arm and spoke to him, did he relax.

"Yeh know that yeh girl comes 'round after we settle in. She'll be out of the factories in a moment. Don't worry, eat something now," John assured him while handing him a bowl filled with skilly. Ben shook his hand and held the bowl loosely in his hand.

"Ben, she's here," John pointed out with a gesture of his hand towards the doorway.

Barker reeled around and sent a desperate look in the door's direction. Sure enough, Johanna was standing there, fatigued from the day, but somewhat glad to be in the barracks. As her father rushed forwards, the girl gave forth a weak grin. He stopped in front of her, unable to find the words to speak.

"Sir," she whispered, falling silent as her gaze traveled to the floor.

He swallowed. "You need not call me 'sir'. It's rather formal and I am your father…" Biting his lip, he curled his fists into a ball. _What was he doing?_

With a nod of her head, she spoke, "Would you rather I called you 'father'?"

"Well, it is not required of you."

"I understand. May we talk now, though?" she questioned him while looking upward, hope brightening her eyes.

Unsure of what to reply, he remembered the bowl of skilly that he held. "I would rather we talk later, actually. You need to eat dinner," he instructed her in a much firmer tone. As he led her to the area where the bowls were distributed, she clutched at the sleeve of his shirt.

When the child had received her food, her father directed her to the floor where she leaned against a bunk and sat down. Mr. Barker placed himself by her side. All, at this time, were settled down and eating their meal.

When it came to this dinner, the meal slipped down her throat with ease, satisfying the burning hunger. Benjamin never took his eyes off of her as she ate. When the bowl had been emptied of its contents, her father placed his own bowl of food into her hands.

Her hesitance made him verbalize. "Eat," he commanded her, flicking his eyes to the food in her hands to the concerned expression on her face.

"But, if I eat your food, what happens to you?" she asked, furrowing her brow.

"Never mind me, please Johanna. Eat."

Sighing, she began to eat the food, though it did not go down as easily knowing that it should have been her father's. Her spoon slammed into the emptied bowl the second she had finished, her movements irate.

Benjamin Barker chose to ignore this.

"I believe you have some questions for me," he began, leaning backwards. This would cheer her up.

"Yes, I do," was her reply as she placed the food bowls to her side to be cleared away by the serving man. When the server had done so, Johanna's questioning had begun.

"You say you were brought here on a false charge. What was it?"

"I…really do not remember. I believe it was theft, but I have taken on the burden of foolishness. Next question, then."

"Where did I live?"

"You were born at 186 Fleet Street, London," he stated, somewhat proud that he had summoned up the memory with ease.

"My birthday was in July?"

"Yes, July 7."

Unaware of the shivers that began to travel up her arms, the girl continued. "Turpin…he was the judge who sentenced you here." It was not much of a question.

Silence greeted the unwanted subject. "Yes," Benjamin replied through gnashed teeth.

"How," she paused, "long is your sentence?"

"I'm to stay here for the rest of my life." He tried to focus on anything rather than her look of horror.

"I had a mother?" Her voice grew quiet. His jaw relaxed, his eyes went soft.

"You absolutely did."

"Well," she inhaled deeply, "what was her name?"

"Your mother's name was…"

"Yes?" Johanna leaned forward, tense. All of her life, she had yearned to know a bit of information that would bring her closer to her parents, now to her mother. _This was her wish. She had to know!_

"Lucy." The word was heavy on his tongue, summoning the most torturous of emotions. Only agony came when he thought of her name, when he grew frustrated over the memories that simply would not come to him. The love that he felt for her, it overwhelmed him. To worship someone and barely remember what they even looked like!

"Lucy…she was beautiful. Or so I heard," she added.

Barker sent a scrutinizing stare towards his girl. "Turpin told you that?"

"Well," she fumbled with her fingers, "yes, he did."

If the judge did as much as touch his wife! The last thing he saw before he was carted to prison was Turpin placing a wandering hand on her shoulder, his eyes focusing on her distressed face, on her chaste lips. What had happened to his wife? What had Turpin done to his family?

"Johanna," Ben studied the girl, gravely. He spoke in the solemnest of tones, serious and intense. "I need to know what has happened to your mother. Are you absolutely sure she," his eyes became conflicted, "_killed _herself?"

Shaking her head, the girl wrung her hands. "No, I am not positive on the matter. You see, he told me she did kill herself, but how can I be certain that he spoke of the truth?" She placed a tentative hand on his arm. "He told me you were nothing more than a despicable criminal." With a gentle squeeze of his arm, she concluded, "That was the worst lie he had ever told me."

And just when Benjamin Barker thought that hope had left him long ago, he suddenly felt himself clinging to it as if it were his lifeline. Not for his sake, though, for the sake of his wife.

Staring at the hand on his arm as if it were the most important object in the world, he inquired, "Is that the last of your questions?"

A despairing sigh was heard from the girl's mouth. "No, I have more, but it seems that I just cannot remember them. Too many thoughts in my head, I suppose."

"Well then, seeing that I have answered your available questions, I believe that it is only fair if you answer some of mine."

"Of course," she said, smiling.

It took him a moment to gather himself, but once he had, he began. "Did Judge…your guardian…ever tell you anything relating to your parents?"

"Only what I knew of you when I came here. My last name, your fates…nothing in specific, I am afraid. Continue."

"Are you aware of how old you were when you came to live with _him?"_ the convict could not help but loathe the way each question seemed to revolve around the one man he hated above all others.

Johanna had to think on this. "I am not sure; I suppose I was there since I was very young. A baby, perhaps…I do remember a bit of you, though."

Her claim caught his interest. "You do?"

"Oh, yes! You have changed a bit, I must say. No white streaks of hair," she reached up and brushed a strand of his hair with her fingers. "No dark eyes." Her hand pulled away as if she had committed a crime. "Mother was beautiful. You both," her eyes fell, "all you did was smile."

Benjamin's mouth went dry. "How does this memory end?"

"You are dragged away, and then, darkness." The memory seemed to frighten her, for her body had backed against the wood, harshly. He swerved off of the topic.

"You lived with…well…we know who. What caused you to run away from him?"

Johanna's face fell. "I was unhappy in my home."

The vagueness of her answer irritated him. "Yes, but what made you unhappy?"

She shook her head, other sights before her eyes. "Nothing, nothing, that question…cannot be answered."

He scowled. "I thought we were honestly answering each other."

"I will not lie to you, sir; I simply cannot answer that question." She became frantic. "It is not…something you want to hear. It's frightening." All had been said, though nothing could be made of it. Sobbing bitterly, she sought refuge within her arms as she hugged her knees to her chest. To her father, Johanna appeared as helpless as the night when she had been thrown in the barracks with him.

"I will not ask that question again," he assured her, placing his palm on her shoulder. "Please, don't cry." Of all the things that fatherhood demanded him to do, comforting his own child seemed to be the most difficult.

Blue eyes popped out from the folds of her arms. "You are not angry with me?"

_No, I simply want to kill Turpin for hurting my daughter. I want him to feel the pain that I see in her eyes, I want him to drink his own blood and retch from the filth. _

"I am…not angry with you. You have done nothing wrong. Stealing bread, well, what were you supposed to do? Starve on the streets until you drew you last breath? I do not think I would have appreciated that option as much as I do this one." A soft smile touched his lips as he grasped a small hand of hers. "You do not know how proud I am, Johanna. From whatever Turpin has done to you all the way to braving your way through the dangerous world of convicts; you have made it through so much. I only wish to know all of it."

She shook her head and brought her body closer to his. Through the darkening light, he could see the soft glint of tears in her eyes. "I cannot bear to speak of it. I do remember one question now, if you would kindly answer it."

"Of course, I shall do my best."

"Do you love me?"

The question caught him off of his guard. He had not expected her to ask this nor had he prepared himself with an answer. She had expressed her love for him earlier that day, ye the fear of the guards was too great for him to reply. He was not even quite sure if he could bring himself to speak now. But in his mind, in his heart, the answer was screaming to be released. This was his child, his Johanna. Just when he had accepted the fact that he would never see her again…This question was the sacred question, the question that he wished to hear every morning and every night for the rest of his days.

"Yes, Johanna, I love you." His voice had lowered; he looked at her with the deepest of respect, respect and adoration that she had never known.

Holding the other was a foreign sensation, yet she fell into his arms as if she were designed to do so. The way she melted into him, commingling with his soul as if they were one. A void within each had been filled.

His rich scent filled her chest. He smelled as fathers should smell, or so she had imagined. Timber, the earth on which he walked, smoke from the pipes of guards, all were a scent that brought her to a place she had never begun to know until now. Home. And she savored this sensation with everything that she had.

Johanna jumped slightly as one of the men swayed from the effects of the alcohol and crashed to the floor.

"Damn," Harry mumbled as he grabbed the fallen man's feet. "Drunk every last drop 'e did…the bleedin' fool."

Laughter was heard as the drunkard gazed upward, shrieked undecipherable words, and allowed his head to fall to the floor once more with a painful tap, unconscious.

Giggling softly, Johanna observed the scene. John had placed his cap on top of the fallen man's face, receiving only the most honorable of ovations in return.

When the applause had died down, Johanna turned to her father. "Is it always this lively in here?"

Sighing, Ben ran a hand through his wild hair. "Worse, I fear. I suppose I am goin' to have to shield you when the holidays come. The gin is downed as if it were water."

Johanna's eyes widened. "Oh, dear."

Resisting the urge to chuckle at her minor concerns, he observed the men. "Most of them are good souls, dragged here on false charges as I was or placed in here for small crimes as you were."

"You're a good soul, I can see it," she said as she sent him one of her penetrating stares that he felt, could see into his very being.

"Not many think as you do. Some say that because we are here we are the lowest of civilization, bound for hell due to our sins."

Johanna shook her head, stray hairs falling into her eyes. "That's not how it should be. People may do bad things, but that does not make them a bad person. I think that many of these men are here for doing bad things just as I have, and they are all the most wonderful people I have ever met. I don't understand many things, but I do know that the world holds virtue, though, it is just very hard to find." After speaking, Johanna fell silent.

"You are very wise, Johanna," her father observed.

She was indeed smart, but unlike a normal child, she held more of a dependency than other children. He noticed, with a heavy heart, that she could not be alone without gazing around in an uncertain matter. Not knowing what she had been through was horrible, being deprived of that knowledge was beyond unspeakable. With a dreadful understanding, Barker realized that if his daughter could not bear to speak of her past without being overcome with the sense of dread or the feeling of terror, she could have only been through unspeakable horrors.

"Now, I believe that it is best you try to sleep. Look forward to tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?"

"Yes, Johanna, it is Sunday. The day we all have off from work."

"Sunday!" Johanna echoed him with a broad smile. How beautiful she was when she smiled!

With a low chuckle, he stood and offered her his hand. Again, her slight weight irked him, but he forced the thought in his mind that he would care for her. He would do so until his girl reached a healthy weight.

"If you do have more questions from me, well you are more than welcome to ask," he reassured her as she lay on his bunk. "Tomorrow you may sleep in for a little while. The men are usually given tools for shaves, my specialty, and all are allowed to shower. We must also attend church."

Johanna wrinkled her nose. "I thought they believed we were all bound for hell!"

Shrugging his shoulders, Barker replied, "I suppose they want us to have a little taste of redemption before we supposedly burn in hell."

"I must say, it appears our dear penal system has a hole in its logic," the girl mumbled while pulling the thin blanket to her chin.

He smirked and pulled a strand of her hair away from her face. "Yes, I agree. But, none the less, we must attend or be beaten for insubordination."

Grimacing, Johanna asked, "Were you ever beaten."

A moment of internal struggle took place inside the con. "As you have had a question that you do not wish to answer, I do as well. My apologies, I simply do not wish to speak on the matter."

"Then answer this question: What did you mean when you said that shaving was your "specialty"?"

He raised a brow instead of laughing. "I don't believe that I told you my previous occupation was a barber."

Her face lit up with interest. "A barber?"

He nodded in reply, leaned forward and whispered to her, for the men were beginning to sleep as well. "You must rest now."

Obedient as ever, she nodded her head and closed her eyes. "You will stay with me, won't you?"

Nodding his head and remembering that her eyes were closed, he answered, "I will never leave. Sleep well."

It was not long before her breathing became deep and tranquil, heavy with sleep.

From the darkness, Jack's voice was heard. "You will not let your daughter interfere with our plan, I am correct?"

Barker whirled his head towards the direction of the voice. "Should she not be a part of it?"

"Very well, but she is your responsibility."

John joined in. "Aw, they'll be fine. We all will be. It's just going to take us some preparation."

A few men agreed.

"But until the plan is carried out, we will all need our rest. Perhaps it shall take effect soon; this will all be specified later."

"John, hush, there is a guard outside!"

"Yes, I know. Just keep the plan silent until we all agree to talk on the matter. For now, let us rest."

The voices fell silent.

And through the dark, Benjamin thought of the future and what it had in store for him and his girl. Escape had always been considered a death wish, the men knew this. But all were eager to prepare and could not wait to taste the sweet air of freedom.

But now, it was as John had said. They all need to rest and most importantly they needed to prepare.

**Please review and this is a special note to a friend of mine: Hey Deb! Hope you like the story!**


	10. Chapter 10

Once again, thank you all for reviewing. You all really make my day.

**Chapter 10**

The light from the sun warmed Johanna's skin, turning the inside of her closed lids a faint orange. The day would be a glorious one, she could feel it. It was a content feeling, content as one could be in a penal colony. But the one thing that the girl could feel with a joyous sense of bliss was the comforting presence of her father. She opened her eyes and squinted in the light.

The man was sitting at the foot of her bunk, just as he swore her he would be. Johanna knew that was their promise and their promise alone: To be there when she allowed the tranquility of sleep to claim her and to comfort her as the morning came to them.

He now stared intently at the floor boards.

"I trust you slept well?" was the first thing he said. He did not bother to tear his gaze from the floor.

"Yes, thank you. And I trust you did not sleep at all?" She questioned, well aware of the answer.

With a great difficulty, he pried his eyes from the ground and gazed at her face. "You know I never do," he stated. Something in his voice tore at her heart unmercifully.

"I also know that you should try," she replied swiftly. She followed his gaze, brow raised.

Sighing, he returned his stares in the floor's direction. "I don't bother tryin' any longer," he muttered under his breath. The words were so low Johanna doubted if she had actually heard them.

They allowed silence to fill the air momentarily. Johanna noticed that her father gazed at her from the corner of his eyes while he clenched his hand as it rested on the flat of the bunk. Was he tense from hesitance, did he wish to hold her?

She reached towards the hand by his side. Benjamin's first instinct was to jerk his hand away, though he did not have the motive to do so. With careful movements, she held his fingers within her own and studied them with a keen, passionate gaze.

His hand strained beneath her own. He was nervous from this.

But the beauty of his fingers, the slender curve of his hand made her forget the barrier that seemed to exist between them. Those hands were made for a profession. Curiously, she wondered if her mother had admired her husband's hands just as she was now.

"What…are you doing?" he inquired in a shaky voice. Never before had she seen weakness in his eyes, only when it came to her well-being when the guards had eyes her suspiciously. This time, the weakness was all because of a power that she acquired, not wishing to hurt him, but nevertheless, weakening him to no end.

"Nothing, I am sorry," she began, releasing his hand.

This time, he took the opportunity to grasp hers as she pulled away. "No, it is not you, Johanna. This…is all so very different for me…" Speech dissolved into the dreaded silence once more. Letting go of her hand, he flicked his gaze to the only window inside of the barracks.

Turning to her side, Johanna realized her shoes were scattered on the floor. Grinning, she began, "Did you take off my shoes for me, sir?"

He stared at her for a while, hard, unreadable. "Er…yes, I did," he stammered.

The involuntary acts of parental care could never irk Johanna. In fact, these acts delighted her more than any other thing in the world.

"Thank you. I seem to be forgetting a lot of things."

He stared hard at her. "What else have you been forgetting?" Concern radiated from his words.

Shrinking away from his gaze, she elaborated. "Little things such as taking off my shoes," her eyes fell onto her mismatched pair, "placing the sewn materials in the washbasins…sewing without puncturing my fingers." After she said this, she bit her tongue and hid her hands behind her back.

"Repeat that," he demanded.

_Was it possible that she had been so utterly careless? Her father had enough to fret over!_

"It was nothing, sir, never mind what I said," was her frantic reply.

Leaning forward, Benjamin grabbed her arms and brought her quivering hands forward. Johanna clenched her fists in an attempt to hide the wounds. "No, please, I am fine," she babbled, ignored by her father.

Prying her fingers lose, he studied her hands, eyes widened. Dark bruises began to form in small dots around the areas where she had pricked her skin from the needles. He studied the wounds, anger growing.

"This was from sewing?" he questioned, irate.

"Well, yes, it was," she replied. "Please, I don't want you to worry about me."

Soundlessly, he gripped her wrists, fighting the black hatred he felt for the cause of her pain. "If that bloody guard gives you any trouble today, I swear…" he threatened.

Johanna cut him off. "There will be no incidents with the guard that I cannot handle. Do not worry."

The uncaring tone within her voice could only last so long before breaking.

As her father studied her watering eyes and falling gaze, the helplessness gripped him, just as it had so many other times. With his forefinger, he lifted her chin upward, forcing the girl to look into his eyes, finally claiming power within the depth of his uncertainty.

"I will protect you, Johanna. I swear it." Though his words were short, the measure of care that each carried was crushing. Her response was a strangled cry; the distance between them was filled by her body as she moved in to wrap her arms around his neck. Once again, he was not one for the kind physical contact and took on the reaction of staring into space, dumbfounded, and finally holding the girl to him with diffident hands.

The scent, the soft feel of the material of his shirt on her cheek, these all were a part of her now. He was where she belonged, this was who she was.

His thoughts writhed in conflict. Anger was prominent in his mind and soul, hate was his first lesson learned, abolishing his naiveté. But now, love was battling his detestation, overcoming his harsh distain for the world. Vengeance was overwhelmed by a desire to protect, a desire that would not be so easily destroyed. Johanna was his present and future, her very being was his own.

But of course, nothing would every completely destroy the hate that lingered within his soul.

The moment was shattered as a hand pounded on the door of the barracks and a booming voice along with it. Johanna and Benjamin leaned away from the other.

"Show a leg, men, a new day is upon us!"

Moans filled the air as men swung their feet over the side of their barracks and dressed for the day. Soon, conversations struck up, lighthearted due to the day being that of Sunday.

The owner of the voice stepped inside, revealing a man in uniform. "Yeh are all to go to the showers, save the new arrivals. New arrivals are to report to the head officer's building for the purpose of recording new names. Afterward, you may join your mates at the showers. All are to report back to their barracks and prepare for Church service."

With a stiff turn, the man exited the building.

Reluctant to part from her father, the child turned her gaze from the vacant doorway to her father. Quietly, she waited for him to speak.

"We'll be back together soon, alright? Do as they say, now," he instructed her, keeping his expression light to ease her worry. Success found its way to the man.

With a timid kiss on his cheek, she slipped away from him and stood to her feet. He followed suit.

"Hello there, little lady," John greeted her with his usual brood grin. "Suppose you're goin' to get your name taken down with the rest of our new men. Not to worry, they'll adore yeh, just as we all do."

James snorted, receiving lethal stares from most of the men, including her father. His gaze, though, was by far, the most deadly.

When all had left the building, the group diverged into two separate groups: New arrivals and men bound for the showers.

Benjamin stayed back and stared after his daughter as she walked through the yards to the head officer's quarters.

"Don't worry, Ben," Robert insisted as he stood beside him, "she'll be fine."

Benjamin nodded his head and fell into line with his fellow convicts. Unbeknownst to him, Johanna, too, was sending small peaks behind her back, assuring herself that he was indeed there and would be there when she returned.

The Head Officer's building was a particularly large looking cabin. Through the door stood a long line of convicts who, just as she, were having their names taken for the records.

Thoughts whirled inside of her head as she considered the reasoning for this. Perhaps, records had been lost from the courts in England. Accurate ideas piled into her brain, pointing out that many had died on the trip to Australia and the records of the deceased may have altered that of the living. It was gruesome thinking, but she now understood.

Some women attempted to make conversation with Johanna as they waited for the wait to decrease. Their conversations mainly consisted of the men that had taken an interest in them, the legalization of marriages and such. Johanna focused on Rosemary and her baby, desperately asking the women if they knew how the kindly woman was fairing. Most knew of whom she spoke, for convict women were a scarcity compared to the vast amounts of men, but none seemed to know of neither her fate nor the fate of her unborn child. It was then that Johanna began to become deeply worried over the young women that she had befriended.

Finally, after what seemed like eternity, it was Johanna's turn to step up to the Officer's desk. The room was a bleak color, complete with wrinkled curtains. The dust accumulated within the room made Johanna's nose twitch.

The man who sat at the desk, which Johanna assumed was the Head Officer, wore a particularly tedious expression. Her mind could not help but travel back in time and imagine the faces of the men who had sent her to the colony to begin with. How could people, who held other lives in their hands, wear such a bored expression as people's futures were at stake? Beads of sweat travelled down the officer's temples and onto his cheeks as he studied her from his seat. In front of him, a large desk sat with papers sprawled over its surface. There was a fine display of windows lighting the room.

Gray hairs had begun to sprout within the Officer's head of dark hair, indicating the stress that came with his profession. As Johanna flicked her eyes away from the man's gaze, she caught glimpse of the sentries that stood by the desk. Of them, Adrian appeared to be the tensest.

"Yeh the girl locked in the men's barracks, aren't yeh?" the Head Officer's voice was gruff, but not harsh.

Forcing her voice to work, Johanna answered that she was.

"Yeh seem like a simple thing, now. I hear our Officer Adrian placed you in there for insubordination." The man raised a graying eyebrow.

Adrian sent Johanna a look that commanded she should simply agree. "Yes, sir," she answered in a hoarse voice.

"Well, I believe yeh shouldn't have to deal with that any longer, seein' that yeh behave."

Johanna shook her head. No! She could not leave her father!

"Sir, may I be completely honest with you?" Johanna inquired. She might as well try.

Thrusting his head backward, the officer let out a bark of a laugh. "Honesty would be a real treat, it would. What is that you wish to say?"

"I wish to remain in the men's barracks."

The room fell submitted to an eerie calm.

"I hope you understand that prostitution is forbidden here," the man pointed out, gravely. Adrian was now rocking back and forth on his heels.

Johanna could have laughed bitterly or cried innocently at the accusation. "Sir, I am not a prostitute. I have found someone within the barracks that I have become…attached to."

The chair creaked as the man inclined backwards. "We can arrange a marriage, if that is what you wish," he began, unsure of what the girl was speaking of.

"This is not exactly that sort of an attachment, sir."

At this time, the Officer was both baffled and aggravated. "Well, I don't quite know what you mean, then. I am specified to this section of convicts, might I remind you. I truly do not have time for these guessing games."

"Sir, take my name down, please. All will be clear," the girl said.

Retrieving a writing utensil, the Officer readied himself. "Yes, your name would be?"

"Barker…Johanna Barker," was her response.

The first reaction of the officer was open mouthed shock. Slowly, with hands shaking for a moment, the officer placed his writing tool on the desk. Folding his fingers neatly in front of him, he murmured, "We have not…we have not exactly had an event such as this occur."

"What sort of event are we speaking of?" Adrian burst out. His clenched hands were held in front of his body, wavering with fury.

"It would appear, Officer, that this girl has been reunited with her father while you were punishing her."

"How do you know this?"

"Last names, you see, they match and it seems that the two have recognized each other, according to the girl."

Adrian's mouth clamped shut. His teeth let out a snapping sound as his eyes bulged in disbelief. Johanna bit her lip to keep from laughing. The other officers appeared to do the same, but their eyes watered from holding back the urge to taunt their fellow sentry.

"Well, Adrian, this appeared to have not turned out in your favor," the man pointed out, smugly while turning towards the younger male. Adrian bowed his head to hide his infuriated stare.

"Yeh father 'as quite of a history, yeh know: refusal to work, rude behavior to our officers, we even 'ad to check 'im into the hospital when he went mad from the heat, speaking only of his family. Sort of like rewarding him if I let you stay with 'im."

Face stinging from oncoming tears, the girl thought of her father, all humor draining like it had not even been there to begin with. He went _mad_ and could only speak of his lost family during his moments of complete insanity. What had the world done to him?

The guard, observant as always, could notice her misery. Pity clouded his features. "You remind me of my girl, yeh know…" Did the man understand what Johanna was meant to deal with? Was it possible that he was placing himself in her father's position?

After staring at the outside sky for a moment, his eyes snapped to reality. He had made a decision. "Perhaps I could keep you in there if you agree to my terms, and they are: Keep your father in check as well as the other men. If you truly feel safe among these convicts, I will allow you to remain there. Agree to be my personal guard there, if you will."

Johanna's tears of grief morphed into cries of joy. "Yes, I agree to all of it! Thank you, sir, thank you."

The officer shook his head and recorded her name on the paper in front of him. "That will be all, Miss Barker," he excused her with an obscured half-smile and a wave of his hand. Adrian caught Johanna's gaze, enraged, but controlled. Avoiding the desire to smirk, Johanna exited the building and began to walk through the terrain and to the women's showers.

Just as promised, she was showered and given knew clothing, though she was forced to keep the mismatched shoes. Refreshed, Johanna nearly skipped back to the barracks, receiving some looks of questioning as her walking took a happy sort of bounce to it. The water on her hair made the day seem cooler than it was.

The men inside had received shaving tools, such as razors, bowls of lather, and cloths. Johanna noticed that the familiar stench of bodies within the barracks had reduced to a more fresh smell. Benjamin pushed his way through the crowd after spotting the girl and grabbed her hand.

Before he could even speak, Johanna remembered all that the Head Officer had told her. This man, her father, had gone insane with grief. Beatings…refusals…she could only pray that Benjamin would cooperate and spare himself a surplus of agony.

"Did it go well?" he inquired.

Johanna pushed a wet strand of hair away from her face. "It did not go as expected."

His face fell from a lightened expression to that of a worried grimace. "What do you mean?"

With a sudden feeling of joy and a giggle, Johanna placed her hand on his shoulder. "The Head Officer told me that I was allowed to remain here! He even corrected Officer Adrian in front of the other men. Oh, I nearly laughed right in front of them all!"

Staring at her in awe, he stated through an exhale of air, "That…is…the best news I have had in fifteen years." And he truly meant it.

Harry jumped upward, sending Johanna into a small fit of laughter at his lathered face and widened eyes. "Yeh hear that? Little lady is goin' to be stayin' with us," he informed his mates in a loud voice. Many men smiled at this, chuckling at their 'little lady'. Even James's associates could not help but appreciate her company, not only because of her kindness, but because of the melancholy that rested deep within her eyes and haunted them if they believed themselves to be the cause of it.

Some of the men requested Benjamin's barber skills. As the convict obliged and ran the razor over his inmates' cheeks, he would steal a glance at his daughter, who had sat atop of one of the bunks and observed her father at his work while speaking with some of the other men briefly. Her studying stares held wonder and curiosity. With little time left before the guards assembled the prisoners for Church, Benjamin applied lather to his own face and shaved his stubble. Surprisingly, he did so without the assistance of a mirror and succeeded, while others acquired a few bloody marks from nicking their skin, leaving them irritated.

Others, such as John, did not even bother shaving. They had said that it was almost like their own way of rebelling without actually breaking any rules. Johanna admired their small acts of resistance, wishing she could summon the courage to do so as well.

It was now the time that all were to be collected and piled into church. Due to the immense sizes of the convicts, churches were spread out throughout the entire establishment. Their church, however, was slightly farther, but closer than the women's factories.

The men and girl walked together, her father assisting the child when she stumbled over a piece of stone.

This church had a weathered appearance to it. The white pain had begun to chip off, abolishing the desired look of purity and holiness. To Johanna's liking, there were large windows, reaching upwards as if to the heavens. While they made their way in, all could see a robed priest at the end of a long array of seats. He stood behind a barred off area, guards standing at their posts, alert.

Johanna was squeezed between John and her father on a hard bench, filled with most of the men from their barracks. Some joked while others actually appeared remorseful of some sins, sins that may have landed them in prison, sins that Johanna did not wish to know.

A minimal amount of the conversations in the Church hushed when the Priest began. Religious men clasped their hands, bowing their hands under the pressure of the watchful lord. Ones who felt the Church had little or no meaning to them, continued to speak, rolling their eyes when reprimanded.

Then there were those, such as Benjamin Barker, who used the time to stare into space and deliberate upon mysterious matters. They were not engrossed in the service, nor were they taking the Priest's words as a gag, these were the agonized men who had lost faith in God's work long ago.

Within these categories, Johanna could not find the humor to joke, the anger to ignore the holy man's words, or the religious belief to worship. Instead, she used the time to study her father in a new light. She was not studying as a frightened child or a dazed girl, but a daughter observing her father just as all others would. But Johanna's stares were more cherished than that of most daughters, more sacred than the words that flowed from the reverend's mouth.

Throughout his period of silent brooding, Barker only noticed his girl's stares after he whipped his head away from a space of air, perhaps because of a frightening thought or memory. A corner of his mouth lifted upward as if to say that he was perfectly fine. But Johanna Barker could almost feel his emotions as her own, as if there was a line of some sort that connected her to her father. It hurt to be away from him and it was excruciating when he was in distress. Perhaps she could end his suffering, if not forever, then for the moment.

Clutching onto his arm, Johanna leaned into his side. Her head only came up to his shoulder, she observed as she compared their heights, so she rested the side of her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes, savoring the contact. He gawked at the crown of her golden head, placing his arm around her back and holding her to him. The man found enjoyment with her hair as he coiled a slightly damp strand limply between his fingers, marveling at the brilliant color.

Touching his child did not come as a difficulty now. The distance between them was filling.

"God save you all," the priest concluded once the service had reached its end. With a twirl of his robes, he retreated into one of the few doors at the back of the church.

"Oh, thank yeh, your _holiness,_ god save us all indeed," Jack sneered. Men's knees cracked as they stood from the benches while some, such as Robert, could barely stand on their own. Groans of pain were heard all around, a pitiful and heartbreaking sound. The men could only stagger from the church, followed by few women. All were to spend the rest of their day relaxing, a rare treat.

A horrifying scream of terror was heard throughout the Sunday calm. Those who had spent many years in the colony did not even turn around to investigate the source of the sound. Not surprisingly, Benjamin Barker was one of the many men who continued to walk. But the new prisoners or the less experienced swung around in fear.

As Johanna did so, Ben spoke to her. "Don't stop to look; Screams never signify a good thing." He tugged her along until orders were heard.

"All are to report to the whipping posts!"

"God damn it," Benjamin cursed under his breath as the prisoners began to make their way to the penal stations.

"What is happening?" Johanna questioned her father, turning to him in great fear.

Without answering, he shook his head and trod along the yards, never losing his grip on her hand. When three large poles connecting at the top came into view, Johanna's heartbeat increased in tempo. Prisoners gathered around the scene and observed solemnly.

"Please, sir, answer me!"

A struggling prisoner was wrestled over to the poles. After tearing his shirt off, guards tied his trembling hands to the top of the three connecting poles that formed a pyramid like triangle. One hand was tied to one side just as one hand was tied to the other. The man now stood, arms outstretched and leaning against the middle pole for support. His screams for mercy were piercing. A guard stepped up to the vulnerable convict and gazed at his bear flesh.

Benjamin pulled his daughter closer to him. "Do not watch this," he demanded strictly as the guard took out a deadly whip. The uniformed man stood with a smirk pressed upon his lips, depicting his clear enjoyment. The convict had begun to grovel, sweat dampening his hair and dripping down his bruised face.

"Seventy-five lashes for refusal to follow an officer's commands!"

With a deafening crack of the whip, an unspeakable punishment had begun. And all were forced to watch.

**Once again, please review!**


	11. Chapter 11

**Hey everyone! This is the answer to a question that was given to me by SweeneyToddRocksMySocks (great name): Yes, Barker will change his name to Todd eventually. There will be a whole scene where I will develop his reasons for changing it and all, but unfortunately, it has yet to come. And yes, Midna Hytwilian, Barker is just to the point where he has emotionally changed to Sweeney Todd, but the change is not complete. An event will occur where Barker is fully morphed into the spiteful figure of Todd, but that too, has yet to come.**

**I also changed my penname. I really hope this does not mess with the story in anyway and I guarantee my name won't be changed after this for a long time. I am well aware of how it irks readers when an author changes their name too much. **

**Thank you for your questions and I give you the next chapter!**

**Chapter 11**

Streaks of crimson blood began to drip down the prisoner's flesh as his back was torn open by the cruel sting of the guard's whip. His screams were high-pitched, his hands were clenched. With a tortured face, he begged for the beating to end, he implored the blows to cease. Of course, they did not. No one could begin to guess how many blows the convict had received, all had lost count. The gleam of the man's bones jutted out from beneath the layers of bloodied flesh bringing forth groans of disgust.

Johanna had stared at the ground, the sky, anything that would distract her from the gruesome and degrading punishment. When she could not bear to look away any more, she gazed upward and only caught a glimpse of the man's distorted back structure until her father pulled her to him and whirled her face away from the scene.

"I told you not to watch," Ben growled as the prisoner's shrieks echoed throughout the terrain.

When the girl did not reply, he turned his head towards the posts and regarded the scene coolly. It was almost as if he was used to observing these punishments, almost as if he _knew_ what torture the prisoner was feeling, but attempted to bury that knowledge.

Some men turned from the scene and began to converse with their inmates. "Unusually hot for our winter season, don't yeh think?" they would say as their fellow prisoner's body was brutally torn open.

"Heard they were goin' to give us meat sometime soon…"

The guards threatened to give any conversing convicts the same punishment if they did not "shut their traps." This silenced all but the boldest of men.

By the time the punishment was concluded, the prisoner had fallen unconscious. He hung from his bonds, limp as a dead man, the blood seeping down his trousers and pooling at his feet. A soft moan was heard as his bonds were cut and he fell to the floor, crumpled from the excruciating pain. Volunteers rushed forward and assisted their friend to his feet, carrying him back to their barracks. His head rolled backward, eyes fluttering, feet twitching. Unsure of where he was, the beaten man began to shriek again, pleading for his life. The cries fell silent as his feet dragged along the ground, painting the dirt road a ghastly red.

As the prisoner was hauled to his barracks, the guard who had whipped the con stood upright and addressed the onlookers. "This is what 'appens when a crime is committed and this is our justice," he stated in a sinister voice, soon dropping to a tone of false cheer. "Have a good Sunday, prisoners!" The uniformed officer turned form the ragged assemblage and began to joke with his fellow workers as he wiped the man's blood from his hands.

The convict group came to life and began to bustle about, anxious to get on with the remainder of their day.

"It's alright now, you can look," Barker informed the girl while staring at the bloody whipping post.

She turned around, noticeably paler from the trauma of the punitive beating. "I could hear him...He was screaming for them to stop…Screaming…" She shuddered and looked into her father's face. "Is he going to die?"

Benjamin began to lead Johanna away from the clutter of detainees. "Depends on how strong he is," he replied gruffly.

A hand fell upon Johanna's shoulder and she, while in her frightened state, let out a shrill yelp as she pulled on Benjamin's hand in distress. Ben stopped walking immediately and stepped towards the man who had touched Johanna, fire burning in his eyes, fists clenched.

John raised his hands in defense, though he did not appear to be frightened. "It's just me, Ben. Yeh good mate John," he assured the menacing convict.

Barker backed away from John, held Johanna's hand in an even tighter grip, and began to walk once more. "Sorry, John," he mumbled while gazing at the path ahead of him. The group passed through yards filled with old buildings and barracks, prisoners and construction sites.

"Little Lady! Yeh don't look so well. I hope yeh didn't watch the poor blighter get his back ripped open," the man exclaimed while sending her father a warning glance.

Johanna stumbled slightly after the memory came to life in her mind once more. "He," Johanna's eyes rested on her father, "made sure that I did not see anything." Gratitude was easily detected from her words.

"Good. Not somethin' yeh want to see anyhow." John sent a passing man a pat on the shoulder as they continued to strut passed the bustling convicts. "Where are you two headed?"

Benjamin looked around him with a less than enthusiastic glance. "Where is everyone else goin'?"

A smile brightened John's features. "Oh, everyone's goin' to the docks. Nice day, yeh see."

"I thought they didn't let us go there anymore," Ben began as his brow rose.

"No, the guards allow it, not that they think we are goin' to try and run for it on the beach," John said with a scowl. "Honestly, where are we goin' to go, Ben? We're on a damn island!"

"Well, I suppose we'll have to figure out that bit, now won't we?"

"We 'ave come up with a plan, Ben," John whispered as he leaned forward.

Johanna sighed with confusion. _What were they talking about? They were on an island…what else needed to be understood? What plan were they speaking of?_

John looked around, suspicious that someone had overheard. "Tonight we'll discuss _this_, but for now, we are goin' to the water. Perhaps a bit of inspiration will be given to us once we are there, God willin'." A harsh grimace warned his mate not to speak anymore on the matter.

Johanna touched her father's arm. "Are we going to the docks as well?" she asked, pushing away the suspicion that came with the men's' exchange.

After a moment of studying his daughter's hopeful expression, he wordlessly nodded his head.

Johanna had never truly felt the wonder of the ocean before. But now, as she sat and observed the ocean with her father by her side, the beauty of the sea left her speechless and enthralled.

The seaside was crammed with convicts, both men and women seeking a small freedom within their prison. Many sat down, relishing the rare beauty before them. The docks seem to sway as the water washed upon the wood, creating a soft splashing sound.

Men kept sentry around the terrain, a grim reminder of where they were and what would occur if escape was attempted.

Ben did not observe any of this. Instead, he took part in staring at the sandy ground and stealing glances at the girl next to him.

A cool, moist breeze brought the smell of salt to her nose. As she dug her hands into the soft sand, her eyes slowly closed. While her father sat, wondering what the girl was thinking of, her eyes turned to him, glowing with subdued bliss.

"I never thought this could happen," she said quietly. "You…_Australia_," she let out a small, thoughtful laugh.

His eyes scanned her face as she continued.

"I always dreamed of the world, though. Far off places that I never would be permitted to go, but my imagination would travel to everyday. Have you ever wished to go to distant lands, see the world?"

Benjamin studied the sand beneath his hands. "I had not even considered visiting foreign lands until I was told that it was to be my fate. Your mother, you see, she…was my home," his voice had lost volume, decreasing to a miserable whisper.

"You visited foreign lands?"

It took a moment for her question to fully sink in. "Yes, I did. But they were not enjoyable visits, you see."

Johanna furrowed her brow.

"My prison ship took a different route than most of the ships now. They…wanted to see what sort of course would be the shortest to Australia." He stopped speaking and began to think of the dreaded boat trip he had been forced to endure. "We traveled in a southern direction and circled the lower Americas, then traveled in a northern direction until we passed Peru. We traveled westward but the remainder of the trip was too treacherous. The officials decided to travel in a Southern direction and pass the tip of Africa and travel eastward until they arrive here which, I assume, was the course you took."

Johanna thought on the matter, shocked by his words. "You've seen the world, though?"

"Some of the world," he corrected her, switching his gaze to the water so she would not see the sudden anger that darkened his eyes. To her, seeing the world would be a gift, but to him, the horrid conditions he had lived under stripped the beauty of the mountains of Peru, the wonders of the sea. It was all an unjust punishment for a crime that he did not commit. How could one observe the wonders of the world with pleasure when one was chained like a dog?

Understanding the topic to be a delicate one, Johanna focused on the lands he had visited. "Was Peru beautiful?"

His eyes became more dazed. He stared over the sea, eyes focused in a certain direction. "The mountains were." Benjamin now stared hard at the horizon, a harsh grimace upon his lips, but his eyes gleaming with either the heat of his anger or the anguish of his unshed tears. "That is where London is…in that direction," the man informed her with a gesture of his hand.

Johanna's eyes followed the same direction. "I thought I would miss London terribly. But I think that home –my home- is where _you_ are."

Another harsh wind blew past the convicts, sending shivers down the child's spine.

"Winter…it should be upon us. Been rather warm these past few weeks, you know. But the winds feel cooler now."

"How cold does it become during the winter?"

"Not as cold as the London winters. But we are placed in decrepit barracks and winter can become quite harsh…"

Johanna cocked her head to one side. "I understand, sir," she assured him. As his gaze began to travel across the sea, his face was clouded with an expression that could not be read, but could be felt; a feeling that could not be named but made Johanna's body weak.

_What gave the world the right to damage her father like this? What truly happened to him to cause such misery in his soul? The pleading looks he sent her, the hazardous way in which he viewed other men. What could she do for him?_

"May I tell you something?" The convict asked in a hushed voice, moist with heartbreak.

"Of course," she replied.

"You remind me so much of your mother."

These words were both a shock and a compliment to the girl. Of all images in her mind, the thought of her mother was an angel! Never had she dreamed of being compared to such a magnificent figure that resided only in the most sacred section of her memories.

When his dark eyes met her own, she leaned forward and returned his expression, the face of experience, the eyes of unwanted knowledge. It was that time when the pair fell into the state of trance, when only the other existed in their worlds; the moment when they shared downhearted sorrow and unfathomable joy, bonded love and sightless odium.

"I almost feel as if I am speaking to her when, in reality, I speak to my daughter." All of his fears seemed to have been forgotten as he raised his hand to her face. "Beneath the pain I see in your eyes, I can see Lucy. The virtue, the beauty…it is all there. I find it hard to look away." With the pad of his fingers, he stroked her cheek. "Everything about you…it pains me when I simply gaze at you."

Her face fell as did his hand. "I do not wish to hurt you," she whispered, feeling the desire to cry, but unable to conjure the tears.

Benjamin's brown eyes scrutinized the girl's troubled features. "This is a pain that you have not purposely inflicted," was his assurance. "You have done nothing to wrong me. This wretchedness has been brought upon me for reasons of which I have yet to understand. Realize that I would never be spiteful because of what I see in you, for I welcome everything that is a part my daughter."

His words made her chest swell and her young heart ache- the heart that could easily detect the pang of woe and trepidation but could never comprehend the warmth of love until the moment she had met this man.

"And yet," Johanna breathed, "you welcome this pain?"

"I have felt far worse. I could stare at you for days on end and bask in the glow that you emit, but the pain of seeing my wife in your eyes is naught compared to the anguish that I feel you have suffered."

Struggling with the chains of her secrets, Johanna bit her lip and turned from the man in order to hide any facial expressions that may give away her past. After all that her father had been through, if she were to tell him of her past experiences, he would never be the same. Perhaps he would go mad once again; perhaps he would become enraged beyond the point of feeling any happiness. All that she could manage to do was avert her eyes from his for now. His gaze was far too keen; he seemed to sense every thought in her mind.

"My past…holds many undesired memories. Perhaps it is best we do not discuss it."

Irritation made Benjamin's hands tense. "You must tell me! I am your father, Johanna," he pointed out.

Though his voice rose with anger, Johanna remained silent until he had finished. Forcing her eyes to stare at the sandy floor, she said, "I cannot bear to speak of it. Please, it pains me to no end."

These words made Benjamin truly stare at his child, but this time, he stared at her in dread. He could not put her through this. To see the soreness in her eyes was one matter, to be the _cause _of it was entirely different.

The girl remained calm; the power of speech had forsaken her as well as the tranquility of the moment. All of her thoughts now focused on the very thing she wished to bury: Her past. Now, she could only sit in the damned silence and allow the taunting memories to pull at the very strands of her sanity.

Thankfully, her father saw this internal battle, and sought an end to it.

"It's nearing sunset, Johanna. Shall we return to the barracks?" He questioned her in a light tone, his expression the complete opposite of his voice. His knees nearly gave out as he stood and held out his hand towards her.

The girl did not seem to hear him. The sun's rays gleamed in her eyes as she looked at it intently, brow furrowed. She did not seem angry nor scared, but depressed.

Raising his voice to gain her attention, Barker spoke, "Johanna, we are goin' to leave now."

As the sound of his voice fell upon her ears, Johanna's body jolted slightly, shattering her moment of reflection. "I am sorry," her words came out as a strangled plea.

"You did nothing wrong," he guaranteed her as she gawked upward at his face.

"You're sure of that, sir?" The uncertainty in her words was a punishment in itself.

Grasping her hand, Ben assisted the girl to a standing position. "Of course I am."

With a grateful smile, she trudged behind her father as he led the way back to their barrack. Grains of sand fell from her body while she smoothed out her dress with one hand and ran forward to walk in step with the man.

The sounds of shouts were heard the moment the pair had made it onto the road back to their home. A scuffle had broken out between a pair of men near a building's construction area. As Johanna and Benjamin walked past the fight, the girl winced at the man who had been clobbered over the head with a shovel. The bloodied convict managed to stand, swing blindly at his opponent, and finally fall to the floor, coughing up blood. Guards rushed to the scene as the victorious opponent stood over the writhing mate. The uniformed men took down the one left standing and sent kicks into his ribcage as well as the fallen male until both were clutching at their stomachs and spitting dirt from their mouths.

Benjamin rolled his eyes and tugged Johanna across the yards at an even faster pace. She could barely keep up with his hasty steps. By the time they had arrived at their barrack, Johanna was grasping the door pane, breathing heavily. Benjamin paused, noticing his child was gasping for air.

"Come on, dear," he breathed as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and passed through the open doorway.

Most of the men were seated on the floor in a circle, speaking in low tones.

"Dear God, Ben, wot did yeh do to the child?" William inquired with a tight frown.

Johanna sank to the floor and her father released her arms. He took a spot next to her, nodded towards John and stared at the setting sun outside of the window.

Johanna could not cease the wonder that claimed her when she saw the small exchanges between the men and her father.

"There a fight today?" Harry questioned while producing his familiar flask.

"The two blokes Edward and George were goin' at it," Robert declared with a light grin and imbibes at the liquor. "Fought like 'ell until George crushed the blighter's skull in."

A few chuckles scattered around the group until a nock was heard at the door. Thankfully, it was merely the serving boy with the prisoner's bowls of skilly. The men devoured the meal, though the conversations that took place seemed strained, the laughter forced. Not one man held a smile on his lips for more than a second, the gazes sent around the room were nervous.

And when Johanna whispered her questions to Benjamin, he replied with a shake of his head and a push of his skilly in her direction. She ate in frustration.

The awkward mood of the men continued until the sun had gone and the night was matured. Johanna leaned into her father's side and had begun to doze off. After a few minutes, her father nudged her upright and whispered, "You need to hear this."

Johanna blinked her drooping eyelids and answered, "I do not hear anything."

He exhaled and placed his arm around her back, supporting her sagging body. "You will." He sent John a fleeting look.

John saw this and stood before the men, his face serious. "We must establish the rules. All that 'ave come 'ere are done so by force, but if you wish to remain in our care with your lives, I suggest you agree to these terms. And they are: You do not speak to anyone on matters concernin' our plans. Anyone who does so will not only regret it, but we as a unity, will do yeh in. By this, I mean that we will gladly bash in the skull of any traitors who tell of our preparations. Are we all agreed to silence?"

Men around the room nodded in confirmation or voiced their enthusiastic participation. It did not seem like any man had objections to John's threats, save the few that sat quietly with their heads bent.

Johanna was no longer tired, now, she sat rigid and awake. John had never been seen with such a determination in his eyes, such a solemn pitch in his voice! The fear of the man's warning caused her to grasp her father's sleeve and quietly listen to the rest of John's speech.

"Good. Now, each man is required to bring a minimum of two tools with 'im to be used for our advantage. I do not care how it is done; sneak 'em for all I care. But we must 'ave 'em."

"And if we are caught?" a man asked spitefully.

"We do not have time for _ifs. _There can be no mistakes!" the bearded man barked. "All men are required to gather supplies. Supplies meaning food, water, blankets, and stamina! When the order is to run, God be merciful, you run like 'ell. Do not think of the punishment you will receive if you do not cooperate with us; think of your _lives _if you are caught_. _Remember what them officers do to the mates of escapees. Torture, gents, you face torture."

One of the criminals spat on the floor. "Sons o' bitches can't do nothin' else _but_ torture!"

Heart pounding in her chest, the girl sputtered out one word: "Escape?"

The men turned to face the child. Their faces were scrutinizing, as if they were wondering why she had not understood their plan days ago. They seemed to evaluate their idea, and for once, they imagined the girl in the midst of it.

"We can't take the child. She'll be caught and Lord knows what those officers will do to make 'er talk," a voice began, cut off by Jack.

"Course we can take 'er! Ben takes full responsibility for 'is child and she resides with us. To leave 'er is murder itself!"

William studied the child, raised a brow, and said, "Do yeh think you can do this? Will you be willin' to comply with these conditions, girl?"

She replied with a nod of her head. "I will, sir. Do you plan on taking all men within this barrack?"

"No one is left behind 'cept the loathsome cowards who cannot take part in this escape and they will face a fate worse than death."

"Wot about the ones who don't want to escape?" The question dissolved every voice that hung in the air. Accusingly, all eyes looked upon James. The man sat isolated from the others. "Wot if someone would rather ensure his own safety than run off to certain death?"

Robert leaned against a bunk, his expression cool as he scratched at his nicked skin. "James, think about wot John said. Guards will see any man that did not escape and torture you until you reveal where his mates are headed. And then it is to the gallows! Best to remain loyal or we could string yeh up now and save yeh some extra sufferin'."

James's eyes became wide with fear. His mouth clamped shut, his body trembled slightly. "I s-s-see," he stammered.

John assessed the prisoner with a cold grimace. "At the docks, I 'appened to notice a line of rowboats. The rowboats are pulled ashore and ready for usage should a ship arrive with more of our kind. Instead of taking in convicts," John's grimace turned to a grin, "those boats will be sendin' our hides to freedom!"

Chuckles were heard; some even clapped their hands quietly.

"Our course will be set in the common direction; we can only stop at ports durin' the night time. It is best to leave this place durin' the fall as well…not too hot nor is it too cold. The destination we'll be London. We all have agreed to that."

A slight whimper escaped Johanna's lips.

John looked past the bodies of men and studied Johanna. "Is somethin' wrong, little lady?"

Barker, too, stared at his girl with growing concern.

"London…we cannot go back there! What if someone is recognized or the law realizes we arrived there, or _he…the Judge_…" The remainder of her sentence fell apart, replaced by breaths of panic.

John pushed past the heaps of men and knelt in front of the girl. "Yeh listen, little lady, and listen well. When we arrive at London, yeh goin' to change your name and live far away from that judge. And your father is 'ere, love! Nothin' will happen as long as your father is with yeh."

The panting did not end. "But what about you, John, and all of the others?" she inquired tearfully.

Standing straight, John addressed the prisoners. "The girl brings up an important topic. Aliases…All must have one if you wish to save yeh necks from the noose. Yeh old names are no longer yours. Assume a different name as well as personality, but we will worry 'bout that bit later. Now, we must focus on gatherin' wot we need and stealin' the boats."

The doors to the building flung open and a guard entered the barrack. The convicts stared at the man, terrified that he had overheard their conversation. Men clasped their hands, closed their eyes, or simply sat, frozen in fear.

"We're finished," James whispered, hiding his face in his hands.

Johanna grasped her father, accepting what was to happen. Even he appeared uneasy, though he tried to hide it for his daughter's sake.

"The night's becoming' quite cold. Distribute these blankets around and get your rest," the uniformed male commanded as a pair of hands handed him a set of blankets through the doorway. His expression remained plain, blasé.

All of the convicts visibly relaxed. Once the blankets were in each man's possession, the guard spared the room a single glance and exited into the night. The door slammed shut behind him, causing the building to shudder and moan ominously.

Apprehension still hung in the air as John resumed speaking. "And that was a sure sign from the Lord himself to turn in for the night. Rest well, all of yeh, and speak nothing of this." Turning from his friends, John staggered to a bunk and placed himself upon it. The men could only follow John's orders and sigh with relief while doing so.

Johanna staggered to her bunk after John dismissed the group, followed by her father. "The guard…he…almost heard what we were saying," she nearly sobbed while her father sat her down upon the bunk.

"There is nothing to fear," he spoke softly, placing the extra blanket upon the bed's surface.

"B-b-but there is…w-we," she stuttered, her words thick with tears.

Benjamin held the girl's face within his hands. "Why the tears?"

The water that dripped from her eyes seeped between his fingers. In a small voice, heavy with horror, the girl answered, "I am scared."

At first, holding his daughter seemed to be a rude gesture if he did not gain her permission to do so. But after observing the young girl, crying without a single form of consolation, the convict leaned towards her. He did not need permission to hold his girl, he was her father. And they had done this before.

Her sobs subdued after he held her to him. The contact made her calm, granting her a feeling of security. His scent, his arms around her, nothing could harm her while she rested within his embrace. It was here that her fears melted into exhaustion.

The man pulled Johanna away, tucking a strand of golden hair behind her ear. Through the faint dim of the light, he could see her soft smile. She swayed, barely awake, and began to curl upon the soft surface of the bunk.

"Shoes, darling," he reminded her tenderly.

In a dazed state, she obeyed his command and slipped the pair from her feet and placed them by the side of her bed. Afterward, her body lay sprawled upon the small cot. Sleep did not take long to claim the child.

The winds beat against the wood of the barrack, sending soft breezes into the room. Johanna shivered once, comforted when her father wrapped the blanket around her quivering form. Sitting back, he watched the girl in her sleep, fascinated by the peace that held her when she slumbered.

And he sat, waiting for the sun to rise just as he had done so for the past fifteen years.

**Please review!**


	12. Chapter 12

**Please review!**

**Chapter 12**

The morning routine was ritual, just as it always had been. Benjamin would watch his daughter stir and finally wake, Johanna would place her ill-matched shoes on her feet, convicts would exclaim harsh remarks or humorous jokes, the same undignified washerwoman would enter the barracks and demand laundry, and the men would go to their separate working sites while the one girl exchanged parting words with her father and make her way to the factories. As it has been said, the mornings were average.

But this particular day took a rather morbid turn for the worse the moment the female workers sat themselves upon the hard benches and begun to work their needles.

Upon entering the building, sobs could be detected from the far end of the room. Johanna looked towards the source of the sound, well aware that it was not strange to hear a weeping woman in the corner of the room, frightened for her life. Perhaps her con husband had beaten her the previous night, perhaps the woman had been degraded by a passing sentry. Almost anything could have occurred in order to put a woman in such a state, and it seemed that no one gave the possibilities a moment of thought.

The truth did not remain veiled for too long.

Speculating the woman, Johanna soon recognized the woman to be her friend Rosemary. But what was she doing in the factories? Should she not be in the hospital preparing to deliver her child?

When Johanna stood over the woman's hunched figure, she placed her hand upon the woman's shoulder.

"What is wrong, Rosemary?" she questioned softly.

Answering the question seemed to be a task that the woman could not accomplish. Instead, a fellow worker spoke for the hunched woman as she wailed.

"Yeh see, she 'ad 'er baby, but those bastard guards won't give 'er the child. They say for 'er to go to work the day after 'er delivery. They say that work is more important than damn children."

"My baby…I delivered my baby and they won't give 'er to me," the female shrieked as she sent her head into the wall with a bang. "I want my baby!" The strength and calm ways of Rosemary seemed to have been destroyed; she was now a shattered woman, radiating weakness that Johanna had never before seen within her friend's eyes.

Johanna knelt down and stroked the woman's hair. "There, there, I am sure everything will be alright, Rose. Please, keep yourself together, if not for your own gain, than for your child's."

With a nod, the woman stood and limped towards a bench to sit. Her stomach seemed swollen as were her eyes from the tears she had shed for the past day. Rosemary walked with a limp, much like that of Robert's in the male barrack.

"Now, I must return to my sewing. Perhaps I could assist you in your work as well?" Johanna offered with a comforting half-smile.

"Thank you, dear," she answered while laying her head on the sewing table, almost like she was about to sleep. "You have helped me so much." Her body slumped forward and only soft moans could be heard from her quivering lips.

Throughout the day of double the amount of work, Johanna spared the woman a glance or two, ensuring her safety. But by the time lunch was through and cleared away, the worst had come.

A single guard was sent to deliver Rosemary the news. He strut passed the women, not a trace of remorse in his eyes, not a twinge of sorrow in his soul. As Johanna roused the woman and pointed out the guard who sought "the woman who just gave birth", the guard stood in the middle of the room and waited for Rosemary to step forward. When she had done so, she gazed up at the male, hope lighting her flushed face.

"May I see my child now, sir?" she inquired, though it sounded more like a mother's plea for life.

"Your child is dead, ma'am." And with that, he turned from the woman and leisurely walked out of the room.

The reaction of the lost mother was silence. Shock seemed to wrap its hand around her soul and bind her to that single spot, refusing to release her until some sort of conflict within her mind was resolved. When this trance was broken, however, determination replaced all mourning in her heart. She did not weep, she did not self mutilate. With a broken pride, she stepped towards one of the men on sentry and spoke.

"I wish to make use of your firearm," she declared in a clear voice. A single tear rolled down her cheek, displaying the unlimited pain the woman felt within her crushed heart.

"Why would I ever let you do that?"

"It is for my own personal gain. Sir, have a heart, I am a woman in grief."

The guard recognized the woman's reason for the gun before Johanna had. He nodded his head once and produced the weapon. Staring hard into her face, he seemed to have registered something that many of the naïve women did not until it was too late.

"Any fowl play and I assure you it will be the last yeh do. Now 'ere yeh are, make good use of it."

As Rosemary held the gun in her hand, she turned to the women who had fallen silent as death. Now, a display of tears began to slip from her reddened eyes and now. One could simply gaze into her face and realize that the female's last ounce of willpower had been crushed.

"Rose, what are you doing?" she questioned the ill-fated female with her mouth agape.

"Step back, girl, and let the woman get on with her business," the sentry ordered harshly.

"Please Rose," Johanna tried again, falling silent as her friend spoke.

"I wish to think of the happier times," was her strained whisper. The barrel of the gun was placed to the temple of her head. In a soft whisper, she made her peace with the heavens. "Lord, forgive me," was all that she could utter before her finger pulled the trigger.

It was then, and only then, that Johanna realized the reason for the firearm.

The shot rang out through the factory, sending soft shudders through the onlookers as they observed the woeful woman take her own life. Blood splattered from her wound, dousing the women who were unfortunate enough to be close to the lady. Of these women, Johanna was the closest. The splatter of the innocent's blood left streaks upon the terrified child's dress, spraying her skin with the thick liquid. Other women jumped back, screaming, as a pair of guards came in and observed the scene.

Rosemary's fingers twitched slightly after her body crashed to the floor. The crimson blood dripped from the wound in her skull and became a puddle around her prone body. It was not long before her body slackened.

Screams escaped the lips of nearly all women, one of which was extraordinarily shrill. Johanna was shocked to realize that it was her voice that emitted the scream as she pressed a violently shaking hand to her throat. Falling to her knees, the girl ran her hand over the woman's back, her tears commingling with the dead woman's blood. The wound in her head was so grotesque, Johanna had to bite her lip from vomiting all over the blood-stained floor.

"Wot the hell has happened in here?" the faster of the sentries screamed as he observed the fallen women. The gun hung limply in her grip. It was almost strange how such a small gun could create such devastating results.

One woman continued to scream. Her piercing voice perforated the hearing of many of the women as well as the guards, irritating them to the point of annoyance.

"She wished to make use of my firearm, Thomas. No point denyin' her the right."

"Oh," the man replied, nonchalantly. "Just get someone to clean the mess."

He, as well as his partner, turned from the gory sight and sent the horrified women crude glances. The woman who could not cease her screams was slapped across the face and thrown to the floor. There, the guards chuckled and began to stroke her hair, concluding with a grasp of her arm and flinging her into the nearest bench. The women lost all control as she fell and crashed into the bench, banging her head on the wood of the sewing table. The shrieks were now weeps of pain as she steadied herself.

The guard, who had provided Rosemary with the gun, stared at the body and then gazed upward, searching the crowd for a woman to clean the blood off of the floors. It did not take him long to make a choice.

"Yeh done gave me enough trouble," he shouted angrily towards Johanna. The girl spared him a single glance before turning her eyes to the dead body of her friend. "Clean this mess!"

"Why did you let her do this?" Johanna asked quietly. "Why…how could you simply stand by and watch a desperate woman take her own life?"

"Girl, I assure you, she ain't the first. Now grab a rag and water. If this shit ain't cleaned up within the 'our, I will 'ave yeh strung up and beaten."

The threat, to Johanna, was empty words tainted with anger. "What about Rosemary?"

"Who?"

"Rosemary, the woman whom you allowed to shoot herself in the head," the blonde teen replied as she pointed at the bloodied heap. Her eyes skimmed over the corpse, pausing on the gun that rested within the dead woman's grasp.

"Well, I'll send for someone to take the corpse. Get to work."

Johanna did not move a single muscle in her body. The small gun lay, mocking her, daring her to grasp it. It was a weapon meant to be used during times of desperation, she had seen that. Was not the future beginning to look desperate?

"I won't say it again," he snarled, malice the most prominent trait in his words. He took a single step forward.

After a moment of staring at the pistol, blankly, Johanna obeyed the guard's commands. She stood and slowly walked over to the few buckets of water in the corner to be used if there was a fire of some sort, for there had been one, apparently, in the past. She chose the pail nearest to her, surprised, for it was heavier than it appeared to be. As Johanna dragged the bucket of water to the bloodied floor, the stench of death began to spread. It was repulsive, the smell that could only be imagined within the confines of a tomb or the gallows down the road.

The blood became thin as the girl placed water upon the spot. It swished across the floor, the color fading to pink. The smell of metallic rust began to add to the revolting stench, causing many to gag as they were forced to return to their work. Some simply could not find the motive to remove their gazes from the dead woman.

The men came to retrieve the body after a few minutes of this gruesome task. As if she were a mere piece of wood, the guards dragged the woman from the floor. The blood trailed from her head, leaving a sickening path to the door in its wake.

Pitiful glances were shared around the room as the girl was forced to continue cleaning the mess left from the suicide. Her stomach heaved, her eyes watered. This was true torture. The red fluid stained Johanna's hands, licking her skin, sending harsh shivers throughout her body though the liquid was just beginning to cool.

Throughout the entire time, the pitiless guard kept close watch on the distressed teen, threatening to have her whipped when her hands slowed or soft sobs caused her to turn her head away from his face. She felt beyond weak, almost as if she would break if someone did so much as touch her. The threats that came forth from his lips were meaningless. The stench, the crimson stains, these were the things that left Johanna wordless and aghast. She was going to be sick.

Again and again, she soaked the blood within the rag and wrung the material in the bucket. This nauseating repetition of movements continued until the floor was wet with only dirtied water and most of the blood had been accumulated within the bucket. The sentry observed her work, giving only a nod of approval and a curt, "Get back to your sewing."

Johanna's sewing had never before been as atrocious as it was that day. The way her hands shook ruined the pattern, the weak state of her body caused her to drop the needle to the floor constantly, the blood on her dress was a terrible distraction from her work, the blood stained on her hands even more so. Any woman who began to converse with the girl received a quick glimpse of apprehensive blue eyes, hidden when Johanna bowed her head and continued to sew. She did not speak to another soul.

The only moment she spoke was when the guard came forward and questioned, "Where is my pistol?"

Folding her work neatly in front of her, Johanna replied, "Why, I suppose it must have gone missing when you had the woman dragged by her ankles from this very room. Perhaps if you search the row of corpses laid for burial beside the church, you will find it within her grasp."

The guard blinked at her blunt reply. "You…you're not givin' me any difficulty, are yeh girl?"

"Absolutely not, _sir_," she nearly spat. "I am simply telling you of my suspicions as to where your pistol is located." A harsh hate crushed her chest, making it hard for her to breathe. Her nostrils flared with deep breaths, her chest rose and fell.

"Good, wouldn't want a volatile bitch pesterin' me while I work," he replied through clenched teeth. Returning to his post, he then muttered incoherent words of displeasure due to the misplacement of his gun.

The hate began to subdue, replaced with a harsh loss of determination. Material hung loose from the threads, stitched in a dreadful manner and smeared with small blotches of dried blood. When the girl handed it to the washer woman to be cleansed, the female did nothing but raise a brow and burden the child with a sharp glance.

Without a single word of repentance or even a fleeting glance of apology, Johanna turned and attempted to fix her appalling mistakes made when she should have mending the tears. She was simply making more work for herself. This continued on until the sun began to set and it was time for the women to set their work down and wait to be served their dinner.

Women gawked at the girl as she stood from the bench and made her way to the door, knees nearly giving way. Few of her acquaintances sent her a parting gaze, deterred by the incomprehensible expression she sent in return.

The image of the prone Rosemary never left Johanna's mind for even a second as she walked alone down the clearing yards. It was indeed colder outside, but that had been felt since the woman had raised the gun to her head earlier that day. It seemed as if it had been bitterly cold all day, maybe because of the changing weather, or perhaps it was because of the death that constantly surrounded the souls of the doomed. Every soul on this island was doomed, only a matter of time before the familiar cooling sensation would be felt and another friend, lost.

_Who would die next? One of the men, another good friend of hers, her father…? Even the thought of losing her father was suffocating. Her father's death would only result in her death as well. That was a matter that did not even need a single second of consideration. _

She now stood outside of her barrack. It was simple to just walk in and get on with her life, but the difficult part was to try and speak as if she were perfectly fine after her dear friend had just committed suicide in front of her very eyes. Her nerves were nearly controlling every motion within her body. Each footstep was another shot of a gun!

"Are you going to go inside at some time durin' the day, girl?" The guard standing watch whined.

In response, Johanna pushed on the wood of the door and entered the room filled with rowdy convicts.

_Would she ever forget the feeling of blood upon her fingers? Why did she feel that she had been the reason blood had been shed to begin with?_

"Johanna, where were y-" Benjamin Barker stopped in mid-sentence and gawked at Johanna's dress, adorned with dried blood.

She stared at his shocked face, perplexed by his widened eyes. As she followed his gaze, she remembered the blood, only their seemed to be less blood than she had recalled.

Slowly, her father stood to his feet and began to advance towards her. As he did so, one of the men finally realized she was there. Harry stood, swaying from the affects of his alcohol, and said, "Oh, yeh gave your father such a fright, girl! Not comin' on time and-IS THAT BLOOD ON YEH?"

The mention of blood made nearly every man's eyes dart to the girl. Their stares did not help the situation, she felt sickened once more.

"That it is! Oh, damn it, she's goin' to be cryin' all night…"

"God dam."

Benjamin placed himself in front of her. "Who did this to you?" he questioned her in a low voice.

"No…no…this is not my blood, sir, this is…er…" she replied, though her steady breaths had utterly failed.

"If it is not your blood than whose is it?" His tone became rather callous as he gripped her arm and led her to a cot to sit upon.

"A…friend of mine, sir," Johanna stated.

"Why?" His face leaned in towards hers.

"She lost her baby…and…s-s-she was very upset…the guard told gave her permission…he handed the gun to her, sir! He_ handed_ it to her!"

"I'll give you a smoke at me grand ol' pipe if you can interpret wot the 'ell she is sayin, Ben," a man piped up from the corner of the room where he sat with his companions.

"Did your friend shoot herself?" he inquired in a softer tone.

Staring at the boards of the opposite wall, she could only nod her head and gag as her mind produced the image of the blood seeping from Rosemary's shattered skull.

"Oh, well _that_ is bloody wonderful!" he hissed as he receded to the nearest wall and stared upward at the ceiling.

"Oh, don't fret, Ben. She'll get over it! Won't yeh, pretty thing? Perhaps if I comforted her a bit…" James began.

Within the moment those words were spoken, Barker had slammed his fist into the wall spoke in only the deadliest of voices. "Perhaps I could comfort you if I placed a nice gash in your-"

"Peace, both of you," John demanded. "James, I swear to the damn Lord if you don't keep yeh shit-talkin' mouth quiet…"

"Oh, John, do yeh speak of the Lord's name in vain?! When I tell the Priest…!"

"Shut your mouth, Richards!"Jack threatened.

"See to it that I do, yeh hot headed pansy!"

Jack leapt to his feet and sent a younger male crashing to the floor by punching him in the mouth. The young man staggered to his feet and swung at Jack's head, spitting a tooth onto the floor. Jack easily blocked the blow and grasped the male by his neck. Clawing at the large hand around his throat, the young male spat in Jack's face as his skin blotched from lack of air.

This gave other men the chance to release their past tensions.

"Dill, yeh never gave me that pipe yeh promised!"

Two men began struggling on the floor, trying to pin the other down and strike at the opponent's face. One sank his fist within the attacker's chest, his face, and his gut.

"I saw yeh staring at me girl, yeh two-faced…!"

At this point, nearly every man was in a heated argument with a rival. Benjamin took the time to send James's a warning glance, but turn to his girl. This was not because he wished to spare the perverted male, but because he wished to shield his girl from the physically dangerous side of him when it was provoked.

He knelt in front of her as she sat upon the cot and spoke to her soothingly, for the fights taking place around the room were beginning to frighten her.

"Look at my face, dear, only my face. Do not focus on them."

Shouts of anger drowned out his comforting words to the girl. All around, men were being pummeled, spat on, and cursed at with vulgar words. The ones who wished to remain peaceful simply sat back and refused to entertain any of the fights. Of these men, John and Robert did so, sending the men only a brief shake of their hands when one walked forward and attempted harsh words.

One man was unfortunate enough to be held down by his mates and forced to endure kicks to his stomach as his attackers sneered at him in his helpless state. He struggled with all of his might until he could only succumb to their strength. The leader of the assailants looked at his prey with a nearly _lustful_ stare.

Standing tall, John shouted, "Men, cease this retched fighting! Look at the child; she's scared half to death!"

"She ain't our responsibility, John," a man replied as she sent another punch to his victim's gut.

"No, but I sure as 'ell think I can make her feel better. Come here, girl, daddy can't help yeh now!" James laughed hysterically, while walking towards her and reaching out towards her yellow hair as Benjamin's back was turned.

It did not take even a moment of consideration to comprehend the idiocy of James's actions.

At this point, Benjamin had lost not only his patience, but his restraint. Pushing James back and away from his girl, he hurled his fist into the male's face, his chest, his stomach –everywhere-. He pummeled the man until James could not do so much as breathe. While James lay on the floor, struggling to live, Johanna sobbed as her father became a man she no longer knew. His face was a distorted demon beating a man, mercilessly, without a pause for a breath, without a single look of repentance in her direction. He seemed to have forgotten she was there, sitting on his cot, horror-struck.

"Please stop," she whispered, standing upward and walking through the room. No one heard her, for the pandemonium within the barrack was far too great. And yet, she remained persistent.

"Stop," she spoke, now in a louder tone. A few men gazed upward at her for a split second, and yet, they continued to fight. Some men sought the opportunity to touch her while her father was busy. They grasped her arms, they pushed her about, and they toyed with her dress. Their advances were diminutive, but painfully disturbing to the abused child.

"Please, stop," she murmured helplessly once more. Jostled aside by one of the violent assailants, Johanna searched through the panic and found her father, still beating the harassing man.

Walking forward towards her father, she stood above the bleeding James and could only stare at Benjamin's enraged expression. It seemed that his fists had placed him into a deadly trance. One, two, three, he hit the man almost rhythmically. And for a moment, Johanna swore she could see a smile on his face as he did so.

She had to stop this.

Summoning all of her courage, Johanna knelt before her father and placed a small hand on his shoulder. At first, he shrugged it off, but when his eyes stared upward, his movements slowed. A twinge of guilt could be read from within the depth of his enraged expression, his hands had stopped. Breathing heavily, he stood straight, brining his girl to her feet as well. Tears, that she had not remembered shedding, dripped from her cheeks and onto the floorboards.

"I am sorry," was all he could utter as he led her away from the arguing convicts.

Johanna focused on the fights, observing the men beating on each other for her first time. They had seemed to be controlled when she had met them! But now, they were animals, embracing the profundity of their abhorrence. It was despicable.

She focused on the window, searching the night sky for stars. Whenever she had been this frightened, the stars almost never failed to be there for her, offering their brilliant shine to the point of her own madness. They had shown in this place, but did they show tonight?

A shadowed figure slipped through the darkness, enlarging as it advanced towards the barrack. Someone was coming towards the barrack and punishments would be sought if that silhouetted shadow managed to see the disputes taking place.

"Father," she whispered fearfully while pulling him closer, "there is someone outside."

Searching the men for one of reason, Barker spotted Robert. He sat back against the wall, respected because of his injuries and let alone because of his silence. "Robert," Ben shouted to him.

He gazed upward, baffled.

"Tell them that there is someone outside!"

Using his incredibly powerful voice, Robert boomed, "Barker tells me there is someone outside!"

The men, though in depth of their arguments, paused as the words fell upon their ears.

When the door opened, they stood straight, almost as if they attempted to play an innocent role. To the men's relief, it was merely the serving boy with their dinners.

Once he spotted one of the fallen males, the bowls shook within his dainty hands. He distributed the bowls to the standing men and slopped their meals inside, shaking as he did so. When he was through, he scurried out of the building like a mouse, not daring to emit one sound from his lips.

It remained silent well after the boy had departed.

"Wot in god's name has gotten into yeh all?" a lone man questioned while sending the men the most compelling of glances. "Don't yeh realize that this here arguing and fist throwing is only goin' to divide us when each other is all we've got in this stone-jug? This is shameful, yeh shouldn't be fighting. Yeh needs to be planning our escape!"

"Beautifully said, Paul...I admit, we are all bitter for bein' boated, God's honest truth. But yeh pointless quarrelling is a danger, it is! I bet not one of yeh loathsome _trassenos_ haven't even gathered a single weapon or tool," John shouted to his fellow convicts. With a grimace, he sat down and gestured for his mates to do the same.

From within the folds of her skirt, Johanna produced the same gun that Rosemary had used to take her life. A few men jumped back in surprise with exclaims of shock as they noticed this.

Standing forward, she silently handed it towards John with small hands. The gun wobbled in her unsteady grip as she held it.

"How…" John inquired as he leaned forward and took it from her grasp, "did you manage to get this?"

Without speaking a single word, Johanna indicated the dried blood on the metal of the pistol.

"This was the gun the woman used when she blew 'er brains out?" John asked with a scratch at his beard.

Johanna stared downward, her expression unreadable for it was concealed by the hair that fell into her face. "Yes," she replied curtly.

"Well, little lady, this is excellent work. Don't suppose yeh have any bullets with yeh…?"

Anomalous chuckles filled the room at John's harmless joke.

Johanna did not laugh; she did not even crack a grin. Her face revealed itself to be blank, hiding the true despicable feelings that had accumulated within her.

"Ah, not to worry, this is excellent progress. Well done, little lady."

As if she had not heard a word of John's praise, the girl turned from all of the men, walked towards the door and spoke indistinct words to the guard on duty through the open doorway. His head nodded once and she disappeared into the dark of the night.

Her father clenched his swollen fist as he listened to his girl fall to her knees outside, violently vomiting and weeping.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

That night had changed Johanna. Her father knew this with a dreaded accuracy. She could barely observe a collected weapon for more than a few seconds without shuddering at the memories that pierced her mind. Whenever a convict entered the barrack and slammed the door shut after him, she would jump with a small cry, convinced that another bullet had been shot, hungrily seeking its next victim. An assuring glance from her father would stop the fears for the moment, but he could never silence her severe paranoia.

A fortnight had passed since the brawls, and yet, the men seemed to be at ease around each other. This never failed to perplex the child. Had not the men just been beating the life out of each other? Not only were their calm ways strange, it was frightening. With the women, Johanna could sense when a fight was about to ensue. The men, however, were not as predictable.

On a night of intense planning, the convicts had pushed a bed aside and ripped open the flooring. Beneath the floorboards, there was enough space to stow away all collected weapons and tools, starting with the Derringer pistol that Johanna had stolen and continuing with various items such as hammers and water canisters. When the items had been placed in the desired area, the floorboards would be thrown over the hole in the floor and the cot, pushed back into its place.

After a hard day of labor, Paul returned to the barrack with a tin opener and Will with a hammer. John had opened up the hiding spot and inspected the other items as he deposited their newest additions among the other tools.

"John," Jack called after his companion. "Shall I give yeh a good reason to close up that space at this exact moment?"

John's head shot upward. "What reason would that be?"

"How 'bout two blokes with nightsticks and rugged blighters makin' their way towards this very door?"

"Damn you, Jack," he yelped. In a blind panic, John threw the boards on top of the hiding area and pulled the cot into place, panting with sweat rolling down his cheeks.

Just as he concluded doing so, the guards opened the door and directed other men into the area. With a few remarks, a small group of prisoners entered the barrack, gazing at their new home. They were a haggard bunch, smelling fresh due to the immediate showers given after their arrivals, but worn from the tedious trip. Only one of the mates looked stable, and the rest, terrified out of their minds. This brought nearly all of the occupants in the room to their pasts. The first night had always been the most terrifying of them all.

"Hello, wot's this? Do we have some new arrivals, Derek?" Harry inquired, beaming.

The guard, whom the question was directed to, looked upward with a tight grin. "New arrivals, Harry, but don't kill 'em just yet! Leave it to the labor…"

A few laughs were directed towards the comment as the new prisoners stumbled inside. The guards bustled out of the room, releasing a few chuckles and leaving the frightened cluster alone with the rest.

The youngest of the new arrivals was a handsome boy, late in his teenage years. A sickly con was dragged by his arms to the floor where he crumpled upon its surface. His face was wet with perspiration and pale from illness. The other four men shared the same hardened facial expressions, wrinkles from stress, and ambiguity in their eyes.

"Alright, lads chose a bunk," John instructed with a warm smile. "Welcome home."

"Hah, more like hell!"

"Fret not, shit like you will be dead soon."

The quiet men took a seat on a bunk of their choosing, beckoned over by John when dinner was served. They cautiously agreed, not wanting to create tense relationships on their first night.

"Wot's yeh names?"

The group seemed to take in all that was around them with weary stares. Their eyes brushed over the faces of each man, stopping suddenly when they reached Johanna's face. After John cleared his throat louder than usual, their heads whirled towards the floor, almost as if they were ashamed of allowing their gaze to linger.

A man cast John a quick glance. "I'm Thomas. This here's Peter, Walter, Charles, Frank, and Andrew," he informed the males with a finger pointing in the direction of each.

"Good lord, Thomas, Walter don't look too well," Paul exclaimed, wary.

"He caught somethin' when we was on the way 'ere. Don't suppose he's got much time on this here earth. Try not to talk 'bout it around him; he's frightened to death."

"You lot are the ones whose days are numbered," a prisoner jeered, persuading others to follow suit.

The men were silent for a moment until the one by the name of Frank did eventually speak. "Who's the girl?"

Johanna leaned closer to her father, instinctively. She had known the question would come, but was she prepared for it?

With a sigh, John placed his hand to his beard. He stroked it for a while, stared hard at Johanna, and began slowly with careful words. "She has been placed here with us. I understand that yeh men are deprived and whatnot," his tone seemed to indicate that he did not care for the men's wants, "…but we've established a rule. And that rule is: Don't try anythin' with the girl, alright? Besides, her father is right next to her, never leaves her sight, save the work period. And I assure you, the man will rip yeh guts out from yeh nose if yeh gaze at his girl for more than a second."

Johanna attempted to swallow the lump that had formed within her throat.

Peter sent Johanna a small smile, his dusty blonde hair brushing his cheek. "I promise we won't do anythin' rash, John, sir."

"Christ, boy, how old are you?" Jack inquired harshly.

"Seventeen, sir," he replied with stiff pride.

"Take it easy, son. Yeh lift yeh neck up too high and mighty like that and yeh might break it off! Now, how the hell did you end up 'ere?" John interrogated the boy with inquisitive eyes.

"I murdered a household of men and took their women. Afterward, I used their decayin' bodies as taxidermy decorations in the hallway of me home."

Each man stared at the boy, some, with their mouths wide open. In the corner, a pious man crossed his chest.

"It was a joke, sir," Peter assured the silenced bunch. Breaths of relief could be heard from the weaker of the men. "I stole a purse filled with money from Judge Turpin after his court session. Reckon you've heard of him, sir?"

Giggling, Johanna could almost imagine the look on Turpin's face after realizing a young boy had stolen his purse. Her father seemed to adore the girl's rare moment of humor.

The boy blushed after hearing her laughter and stared downward at his depleted boots.

As the night continued on, the new prisoners received large quantities of pitiless taunting, some comforting words from their mates, introductions, and finally, John's plans of escape.

At first, the men were reluctant to hear of John's escape plans. After all, they had only just arrived. But with a few encouraging words, the prisoners agreed to silence as well as hasty efforts towards the gathering of weapons and tools. To the young Peter, it seemed to be an adventure. The older men were not as enthusiastic in an enjoyable manner.

"You don't know wot these guards do to blokes such as us. Perhaps you will be more eager to escape after…let's see…a_ day_ of labor," Jack stated, grimacing.

One of the men, though no one was sure who, had begun to weep in the middle of the night after the rest had settled in their bunks. His moans were greeted with harsh orders of silence from the others, and occasionally, a seldom word of consolation. Within a few hours, he had fallen asleep, allowing the others to do so as well.

When the morning had arrived, the new arrivals stumbled from their beds, confused and disoriented. They were led to their working sights after interrogated on their previous working professions. Out of all of the men, Andrew had been taken to a separate area where he could perform his duty as a farmer.

And of course, with new men, came new women. Johanna noticed the group of new convict females the moment she had entered the factory. They were the timid jumble of workers, the women to afraid to speak for fear of being overheard by unwanted ears. Just as it had happened before, the women were lined up for the guard's as well as settler's selections. The prettiest were to be taken, once again, leaving the others to continue working their needles and cleaning the men's clothes.

Johanna could only pray that she would not be chosen for her appearance and that she would be taken away from the factory stained with her friend's spilled blood.

As the men closely inspected each female among the line of the women, the chosen ones would be pulled for selection. An older gentleman shuffled his way down the line of women, eyes sweeping over each of their faces. His eyes stopped immediately when he reached Johanna.

The man had a head of wispy grey hair and a set of clear blue eyes. His eyes seemed to be like a pool of fresh water, cold upon touch, but one would be accustomed to such eyes after a while of staring into them. His face was hollowed in, eyes sunk within his skull. Holding more comparison to a dead man than to a wealthy land owner, Johanna became instantly entranced when gazing at the elderly male. His face offered so much, yet told her nothing. It was almost frustrating, but oddly fascinating.

After a moment of deliberation, he held his hand out towards her. "I'll have you," he said as she grasped his opened hand and allowed her to step forward. The way in which he offered his hand was a kind gesture, but that kindness was not reflected upon his contemptuous face.

When the other men had made their selections, they exited the building with their women and trod of to their desired destinations.

Johanna sent small smiles to her bunking mates, catching her father's complex eyes within her stolen glances. Nearly dropping the piece of wood that he held in his hands, he stood straight and gawked at the girl. He stared at her quizzically after noticing the old man that led her down the road, but ducked his head when a guard began to observe his distraction from work.

The old man did not speak to Johanna once until he brought her to a dilapidated cabin that rested beside a house construction sight. He led her inside, speaking only after he collapsed into a dusty chair.

"I did not pick you for your looks, girl, if that is what you're thinking. I picked you because I have heard of your past experiences from the lips of the guards. I believe it would be best for you to remain here and perform domestic labor, away from fretting women and such. You seem to have the heart for manual labor and I cannot bear to hear anymore of the woman who shot herself and your pitiful display. It must have been difficult to work there after that unfortunate occurrence, so I have decided to put an end to your torment."

She would have thanked him if he had not continued to speak.

"That idiot guard was stripped of his title because of his foolishness. Head Guard was blowing steam from his ears, he was."

"If I may inquire, sir, what do you mean?"

"The guard who handed his gun to the women and allowed her to take her own life, well, do you not see what could have happened if the woman decided to take a shot at the guard? It was a foolhardy decision, I must say. Those idiots who cleared him lost their titles as well. If the woman truly wished to die, she could have hung herself at night using material from the laundry pile. Now that is something I have seen before."

Johanna swayed from the images of death that penetrated her mind. She could nearly imagine seeing her friend's body swinging from the ceiling, a harsh piece of cloth wrapped around her neck, her face pale from suffocation…

The elderly gentleman's words brought her out from the stupor. "Now for your duties…You will remain here and clean, sew…launder-whatever I say-. I'm an old man; help would be grand. If you comply, then you shall be rewarded. Does this sound fair to you?"

"Very much so, sir," she answered, her lips offering a smile that did not reach her eyes.

He studied her face for a moment. "I have heard that you reside with your father. I suggest you take care. Those who become close to you have the power of hurting you to a greater extent should a misfortune befall them."

The comment was so random, Johanna had to blink her eyes and think over the man's words. The warning left the child in a trance, giving her a moment to take it in. Had she even considered the fact that she may wake in the morning without her father at the foot of her bed? Had she pondered upon the fact that each day may very well be their last together?

"While you are here, I will instruct you to use your head. I expect you to think over matters and realize that everything is not what it appears to be." His eyes made her avert her gaze uncomfortably. It was as if he had seen all of her soul in one single glimpse. "In the corner of the room, there is a broom. Sweep the floors and rouse me when you have finished. I will be napping in my bedroom."

The old man stood with difficulty and hobbled towards a door in the corner of the parlor room.

"Sir," Johanna called after him, "is there a name that you wish for me to call you?"

He turned around, but did not look at her. "'Sir'…will do for now."

"Yes, Sir," she answered.

"You needn't call me it every moment!" he exclaimed as he pushed open his bedroom door.

"My apologies, Sir-I mean, my apologies," she stammered.

After the door had shut, she swore she could hear the old man sigh.

Johanna retrieved the broom from the corner and as she swept, she took in her surroundings. The front door had led her into the parlor room. The furniture was plain, nothing lavish. It was rather dusty, for the white particles had caked onto every hard surface within the room. The walls were bare, as was the center table. To the right, there was a small kitchen, and to the left, a large window. The window seemed to be the only source of light within the room. And then there was the single door straight ahead, which could only be the master's bedroom. The house itself seemed to represent her master's distaste of luxury.

Sweeping had never been as hard a task as it was now. Dust was in every crevice, every crack, and every corner of the room. Not only had it taken powerful strokes of her arm to gather the filth within one spot, the task had taken Johanna nearly an hour. Using the broom, she swept the dirt outside and shut the door after doing so. When she had finished, she went to retrieve her master.

"Sir," she whispered while knocking upon the thin oak door. "I have completed sweeping." To her surprise, the door creaked open the moment she leaned upon it.

The old man was lying face down on the floor.

Her breaths caught in her throat. Kneeling, she whispered, "Sir?"

The man sat straight the moment she had done so. "Concentrate on your breathing," he commanded without even a moment of examining her.

He waited until the girl had regained her composure, imperturbably.

"Have you fallen from your bed?"

"No, child, I do not use the bed."

Johanna frowned at the peculiar ways of the older man. He noticed this, but did not seem to care.

"I believe you were supposed to retrieve me when the sweeping was finished?"

"Yes, I have finished sweeping."

"Good, now return to the parlor and mend the shirt that lies upon the bureau. Sewing materials are in the bottom cupboard."

Johanna followed his instructions, slightly dazed.

Sitting upon the man's only parlor room chair, the girl strived to fix the rips within the shirt's material. So engrossed was she by her work, she had not realized the old man lean against the wall in the corner of the room and watch her intently.

"I may not have told you my name, but I would be glad to know yours," he finally spoke, causing her to jump with shock.

Recovering herself, she answered him, "My name is Johanna. Do you wish to sit, Sir…?" she inquired as she shifted her weight.

"No! Stay where you are!" he shouted.

Leaning back into her chair, she returned to her sewing, eyes widening with growing fear.

"Forgive me, I tend to succumb to frequent outbursts," he whispered while running a quivering hand through his hair.

Johanna could only shake her head and poke the needle through the end of the material.

_Never before had she met a man more odd than this one. Not only did he insist on speaking of matters that she had not even spoken off, he would not even offer her his name! _

"You were a ward of Judge Turpin's," he stated.

"How…did you know that?"

"I know many things, girl. When word gets around the inmates, and I assure you it does, it is almost impossible to keep secrets from me. Now, I believe you have earned a bit of lunch, Johanna."

"Thank you, Sir."

Within a few minutes, the gentleman had placed a plate of biscuits on her lap and taken his shirt within his hands. As she ate, he observed her stitching and patterns.

"You work well with your hands, Johanna."From the depth of his thoughts, he thought it best to speak to her on clearer terms. "Do not fear me, child. It is simple to overhear words that have been spoken. I am simply an expert at it. Experience, you see…have you finished with your lunch?"

"Yes, but…"

Moving forward, he grasped the plate from her hands and returned it to his kitchen.

"Finish mending the shirt," he instructed over his shoulder.

When he returned, he sat upon the floor and gawked at the dusty particles that floated within the air. "I have been informed that a few men are going to make a run for it tonight. Foolish of them, don't you think?"

_Why was he asking her? Did he know that she was planning to escape with her inmates?_ "Sir, if you know of their attempt to escape, do you plan on notifying the guards?"

"No, I would not. If guards are going to be paid for their services, they might as well do their jobs. And what convict does not want to make a heroic dash for freedom? Not that they'll get anywhere…"

Continuing to sew, Johanna and the gentleman ceased conversing. The old man began to stare into space, obviously thinking of matters in a different area, perhaps a different time. Johanna could remember doing such, only to be pulled back into reality by the hands of realization.

The silence lasted until the sun had begun to set.

"Come, Johanna, you have finished for the day," he concluded while standing to his feet. "Follow the road down its path until you find your barrack. I will see you in the morning, girl."

As Johanna bowed her head and walked towards the door, she was overwhelmed by the depth of his stares. Before she could slip outside, she heard his voice say, "I honestly do believe I will enjoy your company here, Little Lady. I really do…"

Fighting the urge to turn on her heel and demand how he acquired such knowledge, Johanna backed away from the decrepit house, following the man's instructions. The distance from her new area of labor was farther than she had imagined. By the time Johanna had finally reached her barrack, the sun was nearly hidden from sight.

_What would her father think of her old master once she had informed him of his anomalous ways?_

The prisoners went quiet as she entered the barrack. They all shied away from her gaze, almost scared to speak to her. Before Johanna could question the reason for their silence, she noticed the absence of her father.

"Where is…?" she inquired, blind terror making her weak.

"Your father will return soon, Johanna. Just sit down and wait," John instructed, sparing her a quick glance.

"Where is he?" was her horrified whisper.

"Do not start…just sit and wait, girl," he stuttered strictly. Glances were shot around the room, signifying that no one should answer her desperate questions, much as they wanted to.

It was not the seldom way in which the man spoke that frightened her, nor was it the starkness within the man's orders that struck her with horror. The fact that he neglected to call her "Little Lady" shocked her, and the usual gleam gone from John's eyes _petrified_ her.

Dinner was served, but Johanna did not bother to eat one bite of it. Hungry convicts devoured her untouched meal.

The men gathered around and spoke of liquor and the day's labor, forcing chuckles, demanding that all pretend nothing was amiss.

Her father still had yet to arrive.

With each heart wrenching minute, the girl would gaze at the door, hoping to see her father's lean form enter the building. It would not matter if he was tired or bitter, not as long as he was still breathing.

In utter fear for his life, Johanna wrapped herself in a ball, fighting the tears that promised release from her dread. The idea of her father in peril was suffocating, but her father to _actually_ be in danger was something that Johanna simply could not bear.

With guilty expressions, the men continued to converse lightly. Of all the men, Peter seemed to struggle the most with the secrecy. He simply could not look into her face, not for fear of giving away the fate of her father, but because he hated to see alarm within her eyes and know that he held the answer to her perturbing inquiries.

John gave her one single look. He did not say a word, yet his gaze told her he was terribly sorry for his silence. It seemed like he wished to tell her the truth, but simply could not. The men shared the pleading look as they sought their beds wearily. Though a few man still sat with the worried girl, Johanna still could not bear to even glimpse at their faces as they spoke conversations through glances towards their comrades.

It was the worst sort of betrayal.

When the door eventually opened, the conversations ceased abruptly, as if they had not existed to begin with. Benjamin Barker stumbled inside, limping horribly, forcing his contortion to morph into an empty gaze.

His face truly relaxed when Johanna scrambled to her feet, replaced by a wince and sharp intake of breath when she grabbed his arm. The moment Johanna saw him flinch she dropped his arm and staggered backwards, shock written all over her expression.

"What has happened to you…where have you been?" she demanded pleadingly.

Barker looked past his girl and stared at John. "You did not say anything?" he questioned sternly.

John stood with a harsh sigh and a look of complete resentment. "No, Ben, I shit you not. Did I not give you my word?"

Instead of relief, Johanna could only become more frightened. "Why won't you tell me?" the girl asked tearfully. "Why…what are you hiding from me…?"

He opened his mouth as if he were going to respond, but thought better of it. Clutching the jacket around his body, he wobbled to the cot, pulling the weeping Johanna along with him.

"Sleep," he instructed while pushing her down upon the bed.

"Wait," Johanna whimpered in protest. In return, he shook his head and took his customary seat at the foot of the bed. His back remained rigid, as if he were waiting impatiently for her to sleep. Johanna reached a trembling hand towards him, but snatched it back when he stared blankly at her tremulous fingers with an unrevealing look.

"Please, talk to me." As she leaned forward, she clutched at his sleeve.

"I believe I told you to sleep," he replied sharply without looking at her. In one swift movement, he pulled his arm away from her grasp.

And now, for the first time in her life, Johanna would deceive her father.

Closing her eyes, the girl laid upon the bed. For a while, the child pretended to fall into a tranquil sleep. She forced her breathing to become deeper, she demanded her body to relax when all she wished to do was grasp her father and beseech him to tell the truth. Minutes trudged by and still she waited for her father to speak with his mates so she could learn the truth, though it sickened her to do deceive in order to gain the honesty she sought.

"Is she sleepin', Ben?" a voice queried. To Johanna, it sounded most like John.

A moment flew by as Johanna sent a deep breath through her body for she was well aware that her father was studying her.

"Yes," her father's voice answered gruffly as she heard him stand, "she is."

"Yeh know, yeh really should tell her about wot 'appened. Girl won't live with 'erself if yeh keep it from 'er."

"She has enough to worry about; I should not add to her anxieties...She'll be fine." It sounded as if he were trying to convince himself rather than the man with whom he was conversing with.

"Have a seat, Benjamin. You'll kill yourself. Now, how bad was the beatin'?"

"…Nothing compared to The Rocks."

To keep from crying out, Johanna bit her lip until she could feel her teeth pierce her thin skin. Her eyes burned with unshed tears beneath her eyelids.

"The Rocks…Ben, from the moment you were placed in here, I wondered how the fuck you were still alive. Did they break any bones?"

_Broken bones._

"Few bruises and cuts…possibly broken ribs...It does not matter," his voice did not seemed strained in an attempt to sound nonchalant. It appeared that the beating meant little to her father, and yet, it meant the end of_ the world_ to Johanna.

"Alright, Little Lady, you can quit pretendin' to sleep. I see you cryin'," Robert's voice penetrated the low tones of the conversation.

After the comment, Johanna continued to pretend, contemplating if she should admit to her facade. Though her lids remained closed, she could feel her father's eyes resting on her. Uncontrollable shivers shot down her spine, making her twitch. The tears, that she had not realized had been falling, now seeped into her hair. She could no longer do this.

Ashamed of herself, the girl sat straight, causing the tears to roll down her cheeks freely. "They hurt you," she stated in a small voice. Her lips quivered as cries built within her and thrashed against her throat, commanding to be released.

With a moan, she flung her arms around her father's neck. His groan of pain was almost like a push to her body away from his.

"I'm sorry," she wept, shooting away from him, fearing that simply touching the man would bring forth the agony from what he had suffered.

Sighing deeply, he took hold of her wrist and pulled the girl's body closer to him once again. The man did not speak; words simply could not be conjured up within his clouded mind. Pain seemed to grasp at every part of his body; his worn legs, his trampled ribcage-it was almost second nature to feel this way. If only Johanna did not have to see it…

When his daughter did speak, each word brought forth an unbearable amount of dread. "The Head Officer told me that you have been beaten countless times. He said that you went…_mad." _Her voice broke off, thick with tears.

Benjamin's response was barely audible. "He told you that?"

She whispered, "What have they done to you?"

The question was more than a simple inquiry. It was a profound imploration that stabbed Benjamin Barker's heart until the pain spread to his chest. Breathing stopped, Barker understood that hiding the truth would not do his daughter any good.

"If I tell you, will you enlighten me of what occurred while you resided with your previous guardian?"

Johanna's begging expression faded to one of grave honesty. "I would rather see myself dead than recall a single moment."

Clamping his mouth shut into a tight grimace, Benjamin nodded his head solemnly. "I will tell you of my," he paused for a moment, "_experiences_ in a vague manner. These are gruesome tales, Johanna. Some information I cannot and will not share with you," he warned her.

For a single moment, he swore he could see Johanna close her eyes and take in what he had said. But, as if she had not even done so, her eyes popped open and gazed into his own. She was mentally preparing for this, just as he was.

"I understand."

It took him nearly all the strength he had left to do so much as breathe the breath that would tell of his sinister tale. Stamina draining, he could only flick his eyes towards the barrack window as he began to speak of his horrifying experiences as a convict placed on a hell-island because of a despicable, corrupt judge.

Perhaps he could gain Johanna's trust if he told of his obscured past. His thoughts seemed to implore that by telling the girl of his tortures, she would find the courage to notify him of what had happened to her for all of those years that they were parted, just as he was about to do.

But of course, these imploring thoughts were just the same as hopeful thinking. And everyone knew that if it was not the scorching sun or the harsh whippings that drove a man insane, it was hope that did so.

In a deep voice that held a soft tremor, he began his dark tale of cold blood, deadly odium, punitive beatings, and the desperate images of his lost wife that never ceased to haunt him.

**Thank you for your reviews and please continue to leave them!**


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

The hardest part when it came to speaking of his past was actually summoning his vocal cords to articulate the experiences. Or so he had thought. When the actuality of the situation hit him head on, Benjamin Barker realized that it was not summoning the ability to speak that was the most difficult, but the ability to even reflect upon his past without feeling the torturous sentiments that the past seemed to force upon him.

"When I was shipped here," he began with difficulty, "the conditions were…you know. Sickness, murder, all that was feared was prominent within the hulks. And I was a different man then…" His eyes fell away from Johanna's face and stared at the cot. It was a moment when he could not fathom where he was until the trance that wrapped around him was dissolved by a large distraction.

Johanna provided the distraction by brushing his hand with her fingertips. Ben's dark eyes met hers as he continued. "When I arrived, the guards placed me in a barrack, much like this one. I was _changed_ by the trip and refused to work, begging the men to become conscious of my innocence. That was probably the worst decision I have ever made in my life." The next bit seemed to trouble him so much, he shifted his weight and his breathing became shaky. "The guards resorted to punishments for my refusal to work by placing me in an area known as The Rocks."

"Go on," Johanna encouraged her father.

"The Rocks are notorious for thievery and such…When they placed me there, I truly had no idea what survival meant. My pitiful display led to my placement in underground cells. The cells were much like the prisons in London, crammed to the rim and overflowing with filth. If you gazed upward, you could see the outside world through gratings. The guards would stand on the gratings and shout at us, throwing dirt in our eyes, or cutting the throat of some creature and allowing the blood to pour on our faces..."

Nearly gagging at the thought, Johanna listened attentively.

"The inmates were deprived to the point of bein' animals. A man had caught a disease…and his inmates were piling on top of each other, gasping for air, trying-trying to reach the outside world through the bars that lay just above their heads. It was right there…freedoms rested right above our heads…" His voice shrunk to a melancholy whisper.

"The other prisoners did anything they could to satisfy their desires…anything. Everyone was starving…sometimes resorting to murder and cannibalism. They pummeled other men until they were dead; they clawed at themselves, sometimes cutting their wrists open with their fingernails- they did anything to gain a release. But their beatings were worse than the guards, far worse."

"They beat you when you were there?"

"That among other things…"

From a corner bunk, a man piped up, "You ever hear of rape, little one?"

Ben replied, angrily, "She did not have to know that, Dill, so you can shut the hole in your face!"

Silence greeted his irate comment. Johanna drummed her fingers on the surface of the bed as she waited for her father to move past his anger and continue with the tale. The comment that Dill had made, though, had truly been a detail that she had not wished to have been informed of.

After he closed his eyes and opened them once more, Benjamin did eventually start to speak again. "As I said, they were animals…and they dragged me down with them. They did unspeakable things-I did unspeakable things. I only saw daylight when we were brought aboveground for labor. My assignment was to cut down timber, but whenever I had been brought out from the cell, I was weak and sore. And because of that, I was punished tenfold. Finally, when I had returned, the horrors would continue…and for the whole time," he paused, teeth clenched, "all those bloody guards did was stare down and enjoy it." His voice shriveled and broke off.

Johanna bent forward as shivers tore through her small frame. "Punishments," she could barely gasp. The girl had not realized that she was silently crying until she could feel her father stroke a tear from her cheek.

"If you wish for me to stop, then just say so, Johanna." Voice softer, he rubbed at her skin with his thumb.

"No, please, continue. Was anyone from these barracks with you in the cells?"

It seemed he had wished for her to stop him, but gave his best efforts to hide the uneasiness that came along with his words. "Yes, Jack was with me in those cells. Do not look alarmed, he was like me, simply getting by with what was brought upon us. Jack was there for five years and I was there for ten." His expression darkened to a multifarious look of torment and ache. "I spent _ten years_ in those cells. Ten years, fearing the world that lay outside, fearing the men that lay right next to me, and above all things, fearing what had happened to my family." He no longer spoke to her, but to himself, feeding the dark side that drove him during the endless days. Reveries of his haunting past aided his anger, he had noticed that.

"After all of those horrible experiences and you were mostly concerned about my mother?"

"And you as well."

The love that came from his words sent Johanna into a whirl of grief. Her father had been mercilessly whipped, abused in the worst of ways by his fellow inmates, locked away in a cold cell for ten years of his life, and still, his main concerns were not for himself. No, they were for his family through it all.

And oddly enough, Johanna could feel a connection between her father's torment and her own. They both had been locked away and forced to gaze at the outside world, but never permitted to grasp it. She had been abused by a man who held complete power over her physically and emotionally just as her father had. But the differences were obvious. Johanna had not been dominated by a group of men, but her father had. He had been placed in a suffocating cell for a decade, forced to endure all sorts of hellish agonies. Her life was terrible before she had known him, but his life was beyond terrifying, especially when it had been compared to hers. It was inhumane what had happened to him, and for once, she finally understood the reason for his changed appearance and harsh air around other people.

"You spoke of the Head Officer stating that I had gone mad," her father's voice brought her mind to their conversation once more. "I cannot say that he is far from the truth. The shock of being imprisoned in such a place was…too much for a naïve fool such as me to handle. I began to see your…mother above those bars. I thought of you…how I would never watch you grow. This was what truly drove me mad. It was then I was taken to the hospital for a week or so, only to be sent back to my prison when the doctors realized that I was able bodied for work. Because of my absence, I received three months of solitary confinement." His mind made a visible recession into the coldest areas of his soul.

"How did you manage to leave The Rocks?" she questioned her voice calm even when the storm of emotions raged on inside of her mind.

"I worked without question and did not struggle nor beg when the tortures began. I suppose they understood that they had drained all of the fight out of me and decided to place me in here."

Her father had been true to his word. He seemed to have censored the experiences that he spoke of, but if the things he had told her were enough to make her sick, then the experiences he had left out must have been monstrous.

She could almost imagine a crammed cell, bursting with savage men, cutting their flesh as well as their companions. Her mind depicted a stone floor, bloodied from the slit throats of the animals just outside their cages, mixing with blood that dripped from each prisoner's aching body. The only image that her mind could simply not produce was her father in the midst of this hell. To think of such would cause her the worst of misery; it would kill her to even think of him curled away in a corner, hiding from the world and morphing into a colder, experienced individual. But her mind eventually took on distorted visions that depicted his torment. Inside of her chest, Johanna could feel searing pain, as if her heart was indeed breaking in two.

To her surprise, hate filled her head as well as the agony that came along with her father's words. This hate was directed towards the guards that had hurt him, the men whom had traumatized him, but she truly hated one person above all: Judge Turpin.

_She would not mourn for a single day if Turpin was dead! She would rejoice until she dropped from fatigue!_

"That is a bit of a gruesome statement, is it not?" her father questioned as the same half-smile found its way to his lips.

Blushing, Johanna understood that she had spoken the last bit of her thoughts involving the blissful death of her previous guardian. "Do you blame me for them though? After all that he has done to you…" She thought for a moment. "But these barracks are much better than The Rocks?"

"Compared to The Rocks…yes, these barracks are nothing like those cells. Of course the guards are still…and the men as well…I-I-I really do not wish to speak anymore." He had become observably uncomfortable.

"Then you shan't continue," she replied softly

Benjamin thanked her lowly and placed a hand upon his aching head. The memories seemed to cause him an immeasurable amount of suffering.

Her cool palms rested upon both of his cheeks. She could not fight the smile that spread on her face at the warmth of his skin. "You are so strong, father. I truly admire that. Thank you for being honest with me." When she placed her body closer to his and saw his uncontrollable wince, she had remembered the beating he had suffered.

"I am sorry! I have forgotten about your injuries!"

"It is nothing. Do not worry about me, Johanna."

Shaking her head, she spoke persistently. "What occurred exactly?"

This memory did not seem to pain him in the least. "Guard told me to assist the men as they lifted a piece of wood to the site of our newest construction. My legs gave out and I lost the ability to walk…" No longer could he speak. No doubt it was his previous tortures that caused the week point in his legs.

"May I observe your wounds? If I am permitted to inspect them, I will then-" she ceased talking when she realized, in frustration, that there was not much she could do for her father in order to help the process of healing the wounds he had sustained from the despicable guard.

"There is nothing to inspect, dear, I will be fine. Just as John had said, 'the moment I came here he wandered how the fu-," a pause, "how the _hell _I was alive. I have suffered much worse without medical treatment and here I am, alive. Please do not fret."

With a slight pout on her lips, Johanna agreed.

Benjamin leaned backward, with slight difficulty, and gazed intently at his daughter, waiting. Johanna did not know his reasoning for the penetrating stares, but Barker wished to shout his reasoning to her. It was time for her to speak of her past, if not all of it, than an edited proportion, just as he had.

"What is it?" she asked questioningly.

A harsh line spread on Benjamin's lips. "You know what I want, Johanna," he stated simply, coldly.

Johanna studied her father's unfeeling face, unsure of what he wished for her to do so fervently. When realization dawned upon her, it was not a look of horror that crossed her face, but understanding. "You wish for me to tell you of my past."

His nod was curt, yet intense.

All that the girl could seem to do was let out a deep breath and bow her head. Memories surrounded her, each painful in their own ways, all the same anguish in measure. This was her life he wished to know of; a life of deceit and helpless begging for the taste of freedom that she had never known. How was she to tell her father of her petrifying experiences? How was she-a simple child- supposed to explain the complexities of what the tyrant had done to her mind and body?

"I will tell you."

All tension left Benjamin's face. "Thank you, Johanna."

"But I will do as you did and leave out parts that I do not think are suitable for you to hear," she added.

A frown found its way to his face. "But-"

"Yes, I know that you did that because I am a young girl and I do not deserve to hear such things. I know this. But just as you refused observation of your injuries for fear of adding to my anxieties, I wish to censor my past so I will not add to yours."

Face falling, he asked miserably, "Can your past really have been as horrible as it sounds to begin with?"

_You would be surprised, father. _

"I have told you that I do not remember when I had been brought in as Judge Turpin's ward." The girl made sure to emphasize the fact that Turpin was a judge and held no value to her any longer. "For as long as I can remember, I had spent my days shut up in a room he had prepared for me. It was a quant, pretty room, for a common girl. I _loathed _it. To me, that room was nothing but a prison. All I had for my enjoyment was a small window, my birds, and crafts such as sewing."

_That and the cruel visits that Turpin had the audacity to say were also for her enjoyment. _

Benjamin gave her a quizzical look. "You were not allowed to step outside?"

"No, I was not allowed. I faintly remembered small strolls down the street with _him_ when I was younger, but those ended when I was…maybe eleven? I am not quite sure."

_Those walks stopped the same day he had first claimed her as his own. She had been twelve years old. _

"He told me that he loved me."

_He swore his adoration for her as he kissed her all too tenderly. _

"I was advised to call him 'father'."

_She could still see the fire of guilt in his eyes as she screamed for him to end it all. She could still see the tears that were never shed as she begged the man she called 'father' to treat as a father should._

"The nightmares came to me every night."

_When she was awake and when she made an attempt to sleep._

"Private visits…_during_ the night…" she gasped with tears forming in her eyes. The truth that thrashed against her throat, begging to be released, was bound by the horrors that came with its telling. It remained suppressed.

_It was almost as if he could see her when she lay to sleep; his eyes upon her sprawled figure. _

Concerned, Benjamin shifted his weight forward. "Johanna, look at me."

"The Beadle would _watch_," she continued, the world around her a black hole of oblivion.

_And when his master's back was turned, the Beadle would partake in visits of his own._

"What would the Beadle watch?" Benjamin demanded as he gripped the girl's shoulders. "What did they do to you?!"

"And I let them."

_Surrender was her only consolation. Succumbing to their wants; Succumbing to the lions of the den._

Her body swayed, her head throbbed, her vision failed. The girl felt as if she were falling, prepared to meet death as the end of all approached her.

"Jesus Christ, we are tryin' to sleep!" an aggravated con barked.

Shaking her head fiercely, Johanna stared into the face of oblivion until her eyes began to ache. Breathing seemed to have forsaken her and by the time her father pulled her from her anesthetized state, air crashed into her chest, making her breast heave up and down. She slammed a hand to her throat, feeling her sluggish pulse quicken as air traveled through her trembling figure body.

Helpless, her father had gotten to his feet and grasped the girl by her shoulders. Anxiety rippling through him, he felt little to no relief as the child returned to consciousness of the world around them.

_She did not tell him! The words of her past were brought before him only to be held back by the chains of his daughter's fears._

With no other option, Benjamin questioned Johanna again in a voice barely above a whisper. "Johanna, what those men do to you?" His words were laden with harsh breaths.

Those same teary blue eyes made their way to her father's face. Those same eyes showed that her stamina had been drained from the mere thought of her past, and worst of all, those clouded blue eyes showed excruciating remorse for her failure to speak.

And he knew that she could say nothing more.

"You don't…you don't have to continue," the man consoled Johanna. Ashamed of her display, the only response the teen could give was collapsing into her father's arms, gulping down the air that held his scent, sobbing against the chest that held his strong heart, but holding the body that contained his shattered spirit.

Benjamin's eyes ran over the night sky, brightened by their mirth. In response, his eyes darkened.

The violent shudder that came along with her sobs began to fade. In order to provide her with a distraction, Barker opened his lips and found the words that he was searching for. "Who was that older man you were walking with earlier?"

Looking up from his chest, she offered a broken smile. "I cannot say. He did not tell me his name. The man is my new master though. He is rather different…strange" While Johanna summoned the memories of the day to her mind, confusion crossed her face.

Upon seeing her baffled expression, Benjamin sighed and spoke. "Would you tell me what happened while you were in the man's care?"

_Or is that to be a challenge as well?_

"H-he seemed to know so much! I never whispered so much as a word to him about myself and he seemed to know plenty about me to begin with. He told me to call him 'sir' and he knew of my previous guardian." She let out a shaky laugh. "The man was even aware of my pet name!"

Johanna seemed to find a slight bit of humor in the peculiar ways of her new master, but Benjamin only felt spite burning in his chest. Whoever this man was, he apparently knew how to hear things that should not be heard.

The smile that rested upon her face vanished, leaving a worried grimace on her face. "He knew…_other_ things as well."

"Such as…?"

"Well," she began, "he was well aware of an escape attempt a few of the men are about to make. Do you know of it?"

Jack's voice pierced through the calm. "Escape…men?"

Ben's eyes widened. Slowly standing to his feet, the prisoner stumbled towards the barrack window and gazed into the night. It was as if he were searching for the prisoners among the darkened terrain. Among the shadows of the cabin, a few other men had stood and accumulated around the window, apparently overhearing the pair's conversation.

A low buzz of talk generated, focusing mainly on the possible escapees. Eager eyes scanned the outside world, waiting for a commotion of some sort to begin.

A good half of an hour had passed, and still, there was nothing. But just as the disquieted men turned to their bunks once again, Peter leapt forward and pointed outside.

"Do you see them?" he asked. "That is the men-in the distance!'

Bodies crammed towards the window and hungrily observed the convicts that were indeed bounding across the ground in a heroic attempt of escape.

The faces of the group members were the same; tired but determined, fearful but desperate. The legs of each man lurched forward, slowing after every thrust but pushed forward nonetheless. In their hands, each member clutched a weapon of some sort such as a hammer or a bent shovel. It was a pitiful sight. Muted melancholy spread through every onlooker while they gawked at their inmates running for their very lives.

The obvious foolhardiness of their decision was shown when the guards, trailing behind the group, finally came into view.

The watching prisoners moaned in hatred as the sentries caught up to the convicts. A few uniformed men stayed behind, raised their guns, and shot at the men. The bullets jerked their bodies forward, ultimately disabling them. The rest, however, were forced to push forward. They did not last much longer.

When the understanding looks fell upon the weary expressions of the surviving runners, they realized that it was nearing the time of their fate. They were doomed. And with crestfallen glances towards each other, they stopped running and fell to their knees.

The guards grasped the surrendering males and dragged them to their feet, tying their hands behind their backs with rope that they produced from sacks worn around their shoulders.

Only one man struggled as the sentries attempted to apprehend them. The patience of one of the officers grew so thin resulting in him unsheathing a deadly rapier and pointed it at the chest of the shrieking man. Looking past the pointed tip, the convict spat at the threatening officer, receiving the blade in his neck for his disobedience.

Pressing a fist to her mouth, Johanna watched as the prisoner bled to death among his fallen mates. The rest were forced to walk forward, destined for the solitary confinement cells until their fates were decided.

Fury spread through the cabin. Men beat their fists against walls until their knuckles bled, cursed the officers, or simply turned towards their bunk and sat upon its surface with blank faces.

"The bastards could o' made it, sons o' blasted bitches," the scarred man hollered as he pushed past other men, eyes glinting with rage.

The girl cried as her father brought her to his chest and guided her through the crowds of resenting prisoners. John's words barely touched her ears.

"The officers are goin' to tighten security 'round 'ere now that these poor blighters 'ave tried and failed to run for it. Let this be a warnin' to us all."

"You shouldn't have seen that," Benjamin whispered to Johanna as he held her within his tight embrace. His arms did not leave her body until the shouts of anger had abated and the men had returned to their cots. When they had, Ben gently pushed Johanna upon her bed and commanded the child to attempt sleeping. Knowing he should soothe the shaken girl, he turned from her and clutched at his wounds. The pain burned his flesh and tore at his limbs.

Even though he could not offer the comfort that he was well aware he should provide for his daughter, Johanna demanded it. As he sat at the end of her bed, Johanna grasped at his sleeve and pulled her father to her side, making him lie beside her. His body, rigid from pain, relaxed as her arms found their way around his chest and they lay side by side, staring into the other's face. Rubbing her arms until her shivering had ceased, Benjamin forced the images of the crumpled bodies out of his mind, uncaring that he had seen it, but enraged that his _child _had observed the gruesome murders as well.

One thought lingered in the teen's mind as her body screamed for rest_. The old man had been right. The escape, the apprehension-everything! It was just as he said._

And no matter how hard each and every prisoner tried to sleep that night, they all knew that slumber would never come to them.

**After that morbid chapter, I brightly request your reviews! ******

**(Please pray for the person that goes by the username of Energy. She is going into surgery and I wish her the best of luck! Thank you everybody!) **


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

The drums began to roll, signifying the end as the apprehended convicts climbed the ladders with nooses hanging limply around their necks. Everyone was well aware what would happen when the drummers had ceased their rhythmic beat, but they questioned if they were prepared for it.

Over the rumble of the drums, a guard stepped forward and raised his arm. Before he could signify the dropping of the bodies, a condemned man cried out, "I did it to escape this place, and by God, I shall now gain the freedoms that I ran for!"

The crowd stayed respectfully silent.

Enraged at the comment, the officer sent his hand slicing through the air. The drummers ceased and the bodies fell, some necks cracking while others stilled from asphyxia.

Face downward, Johanna remembered she had promised her father she would not look at the execution. Even when her master tapped her arm, she turned her head awkwardly to avoid the gruesome sight, and strut down the road with the older man as the onlookers solemnly departed.

"You did not observe the execution," the man pointed out.

Sighing, she replied, "I promised my father I would not."

"How admirable," he stated in a slightly sarcastic tone.

The harsh tone in which he spoke was not uncommon. In fact, Johanna had found herself quite accustomed to his bitter comments and strange ways. Still, she was unaware of his name and he refused to explain how he acquired knowledge of her past and such. In an increasingly irritated manner, her master would eye her, face revealing nothing, yet his mouth passing cruel words when she allowed her gaze to linger upon his wary face.

"Did you finish mending the blanket, girl?" the old man asked as they entered his home.

"Of course, sir," she answered, her head rising up an inch.

"Really…? Well, you are the inconspicuous one, aren't you? Yes, you are even sneakier than the day of that woman's suicide when you stole the gun from the officer!"

Feet failing her, Johanna stumbled backwards, crashing against the wall as air escaped her in a single huff. "How…You must be mistaken!"

With a bored expression, the man said, "Oh, spare me, Johanna. A gun mysteriously vanishes from sight without explanation after a girl is ordered to clean blood from a suicidal woman's body? Honestly, do you take me for a fool?" Offering a wry grin, her master chuckled, "You and your mates are planning on escaping, aren't you?"

Hands flying before her in a pleading manner, Johanna uselessly denied the claim.

"Calm yourself child, I have been waiting for this opportunity for nearly all of my life. The way you obeyed your father shows that you are an honest child and I believe that my honesty should be shown as well. "

Utterly confused, Johanna could only waver and stagger towards the chair in which her master indicated for her to sit with his bony finger.

"I have something to tell you," he started, "and you must swear to me that the information of which I speak is never to be repeated to another man of authority within the law, Johanna. What I tell you, well," he paused in frustration, "is a tale that I have not told another soul."

Already fearing what was to be said Johanna nodded her head, shaking from her master's discovery.

"When I was younger, I too, was a convict here in Botany Bay."

To hide her gasp, the girl pressed a hand to her mouth. "That is why you act so different…" Voice falling, Johanna's mind finally made sense out of the unexplained habits of her master, or at least a little bit of it. He slept on the floor as it were a cell, the old man barely ate a meal for his stomach must have shrunken, he gazed around in an uncertain manner as if he were prepared for only the worst of occurrences, and the outbursts must have been obtained from the storage of anger he had been holding during all of those years within confinement One simple sentence seemed to have answered many questions, and yet, it conjured so many more.

When the space between the girl's brows had increased, the elderly male continued speaking. "After twenty years, I planned on escaping with my mates. They told me to be the eyes and ears of this establishment, relaying messages and such to members of our escape plan. That, as you may understand, is how I know so much about you, Johanna. For years, I was instructed on observing all that was around me without even the slightest room for mistake. I simply put my skills to work once more when I had settled here. I know nearly as much about you as I know about everyone here, it is simply what I have done and what I will continue to do until my last breath is drawn.

"Our escape plan would have worked, it truly would have, if I had not been such a fool!" he slammed a frail hand into his lap. "My inmates had to change the date of our run to that of an earlier one, for a member of our own was to be hung within the fortnight. When I was told to relay the changed date of our escape to a different group of cons, I panicked. Their hut, we did not have barracks, was located in the Rocks. I am not sure if you know of The Rocks…" he eyed her inquisitively.

"Yes, sir," Johanna assured him, thinking of her father's revolting tale, "I have heard of it."

"Well," he continued, not taken aback in the least, "then you will know that it is not the friendliest of places. I was too frightened to inform that one section of cons our changed plans. When the day of escape eventually came, I fled with my mates, leaving the others unaware of our flight. I was informed that the men I left behind were captured as they attempted to escape on our original day of escape, without any idea that we had already vanished. All perished."

"And," Johanna inquired, "did _your_ escape attempt work?"

"If it hadn't, I would not be speaking to you as I do now, girl. We fled in a Western direction, though I was eventually cast away for my disobedience after the guilt ate at my head." The way in which he spoke seemed to say that the old man seemed to have agreed with the group's decision of forsaking him.

"As I wandered, unaccompanied, I finally reached a settlement where I managed to acquire a new identity. For years, I forced a proper accent upon my tongue and I groomed myself to hold the appearance of a proper gent. Afterward, I traveled here and used my false identity to settle here in Botany Bay, waiting for a chance to redeem myself."

Kneeling before Johanna, he spoke, "I have a debt to pay, child, a horrible debt that never ceases to trouble me. I killed those men; their blood is on my hands! If I had simply looked past my fears, slipped into the Rocks, and told the men of our changed plans, as I had done for many years, they would have made it out with the rest of us, alive and well. This is my opportunity to reach salvation."

A small part of Johanna's body had begun to recoil from the man. "I do not understand how I can help you, sir."

"Oh, but you_ can_ help me, Johanna by telling me the truth to start with. Are you planning on escape?"

"Just as you demanded my word of confidentiality, I will need yours as well, sir." Her heart increased its rhythmic tempo.

"Would you not trust an ex-con such as me?" he asked with a growing smile. Somehow, he was finding amusement out of her discretion.

"If you do wish to know the truth, you must swear not to tell another soul. I will keep my word, so long as you keep yours."

Beaming, the man stated, "Intelligent girl. Johanna, you have my solemn swear of secrecy. Now, are you planning on escape?"

"Yes." She chose to keep her answer short. "We are."

"I knew it," the man laughed. "Oh, you have not even the slightest idea how happy you have made me, child!"

Furrowing her brow, Johanna inquired, "This news makes you glad?"

"This is chance to wash my mates blood off of my hands." The old man grasped Johanna's small hands within his own. "The day I chose you to be my worker, I did not pick you for your looks, as I had said. Nor did I pick you to release you from the torment you received at the factories. I chose you because I suspected that you planned escape to begin with. It was quite obvious to me that you were planning to flee when I heard of the missing gun. My choice to keep you here was because I wished to see if you were worthy of this gift I can give you, Johanna. Oh, and you deserve it, you truly do."

"What gift, sir?" Johanna's breath caught in her throat.

"Weapons, supplies, anything you want. I will provide you and your mates with necessities needed for escape."

"How will you acquire these things?"

"An old man requesting weapons for protection against burly cons is not an odd request, Johanna," he pointed out. "And I receive food every day. When I escort you to your barrack, I will bring these supplies with me and slip them inside to your mates. That is my gift for your virtue, girl. I give you the chance of freedom."

Tears of gratitude forming in her eyes, Johanna held the man's hands closer to her heart. "Do you truly mean this? Are you aware of the punishment you will receive if you are caught helping prisoners escape?"

"No worse than the punishment of the bottomless shame I have been forced to live with. Please, except my offer and release me of my burden."

"I will, sir," she agreed, tears silently streaming down her face. "Thank you." Her heart could only break as she gazed at the man's wrinkled face. He had probably seen so much...From the way he seemed to act, the chances of him having a family must have been very slim. Internally, Johanna could feel only pity for the man, that as well as deep gratitude for his abrupt benevolence.

He scanned her face before speaking. Something within his clear blue eyes seemed to have dimmed until it was ultimately extinguished as he opened his mouth to speak yet again. "I will require only one thing in return."

"Of course, sir, I will do anything you ask!"

"On the night of your escape, you must agree to kill me."

**London, England**: **The Old Bailey**

**Same day**

A frown creased Turpin's skin as he observed the conviction rates of the past year with a small assembly consisting of fellow England Judges. Beside him, Beadle Bamford stared into space, waiting to be called upon. The only movement he made was a flick of his hand when a greasy lock of hair fell into his eyes, blocking his vision. An agitated wheeze was heard from the back of his throat as he did so.

"It says here that the rates of executions in London are higher than most England towns," Turpin pointed out to the man by his side.

"Yes, ever since your ward left…" the Beadle snapped his mouth shut, biting back the words that he knew were simply foolish to utter.

"Continue," Turpin ordered in an icy voice as he turned towards the Beadle.

Hesitant, he finished his statement. "Ever since your ward left, you have been rather aggressive towards the apprehended men and women of London." The portly man bit his lip to keep from reminding the judge that every woman who held even the slightest resemblance to Johanna was hung, no matter how small the crime was. Turpin had begun a reign of terror towards the civilians, but their terror brought forth respect.

"Whether my ward remains in my home or not, I do not believe that I should be lenient on prisoners and provide them with a second chance to break our society's laws once again. Hand me the list of the convicted, I wish to compare the punishments of our criminals under the hand of other judges with that of my own." Grumbling about the Beadle's accusation, he held out his hand, waiting for the smooth feel of paper pressed against his palm.

Bamford's gloved fingers passed the papers to Turpin. After a few glances at lists from various court houses, the Beadle handed Turpin another file. "This is a list of the condemned from the Judge of Birmingham. Rather…_punitive_…with his detainees."

The Judge's dark, bloodshot eyes scanned the list of names, observing their crime and final sentencing.

_Ali, Thomas. Crime: Stolen horse. Sentencing: hanging by the neck until pronounced dead._

A corner of Turpin's mouth turned upward at the sentence. Already, he had a liking to this particular judge.

_Bachman, Gregory. Crime: Assault on a legal official. Sentencing: lifetime exile. Destination: Botany Bay, Australia._

The list had become rather droll as the sentences decreased in their severity. Only names were to be seen; a long unending list of condemned rubbish.

_Bailey, Daniel. Barker, Johanna. Callaghan, Helen. Edwards, Clarence._

Eyes frozen, the judge gave the list a second glance. This time, the name popped out as if it were written in bold ink.

_Johanna Barker._

"Look here," Turpin pointed towards the name on the paper. The Beadle obediently stepped forward and glanced at the name upon the list.

"Is it…_her_, your honor?" he asked."Is it your ward?" For once, all of the boredom had drained from his face.

Fingers holding the smallest tremor, he took in the information of the girl's crime and sentencing. "It says that she was apprehended for minor theft and sentenced…to Botany Bay, Australia. Like her fath-" Unable to even spit out the word, Turpin pressed a hand to his throbbing skull. "Will the Judge of Birmingham please stand?" he managed to gasp.

After the command was issued, the Judge stood and gazed at Turpin, visibly uninterested.

"Describe a girl you convicted by the name of Johanna Barker," he ordered, though his pounding head kept him from interrogating the judge fiercely, as he would usually do.

In deep thought, the Birmingham Judge spoke. "I have convicted plenty of girls, Turpin. You need to specify."

"Yes, alright," Turpin snapped. "Small thing…blonde hair…" _Chaste lips, the color of a rose in full bloom…soft blue eyes, large with affection, or was it fear? _"A girl of fifteen when apprehended…sentenced to Australia for simple thievery. Do you recall?" The very thought of the young beauty made his vision cloud with resentment.

After a moment of deliberation, the fellow judge shook his head. "Yes, small thing, she was. Shook like a leaf when her sentencing began. I set the girl as an example for the corrupted youth of our town. Why is it that you ask?"

"Never you mind," the judge growled as he leaned into his chair. The Birmingham Judge did so as well, bemused by the incensed tone of Judge Turpin.

_He had found her. She had thought her previous name would have been enough to hide her identity! No, that was not enough…it never would have been enough._

Cursing the day he had ever told his ward of her past, Turpin made a hasty decision. "Beadle, summon any officer of authority that will be travelling on the next ship to Botany Bay, Australia. You should find one at our prisons, waiting for transport. Go now, be quick."

Unsure of the Judge's intentions, Bamford left the building and went to retrieve an officer that matched Turpin's request.

As he waited, Turpin drowned out the conversations of the other judges around him. Those who gawked at Turpin did so in admiration, for he was the most powerful man among them. Though he usually observed their admirable glances with strong pride, his thoughts were otherwise occupied with plans of what to do when the Beadle did bring the selected officer before him.

Only when a certain idea had come to him did he begin to write, eyes shining with pleasure towards his clever scheme. The moment the Beadle had returned with an officer an hour or two later, Turpin had finished a letter and sealed it within an envelope, addressed to the Head Officer of the Botany Bay area. Stomping the envelope with his seal, he looked up from the paper and studied the officer of choosing.

Slightly concerned, the officer stood before Judge Turpin. His green eyes were averted to the floor in respect for the official.

"What is your name, officer?" Turpin requested.

"Richard Taft, your honor."

"And you are destined to Botany Bay, Australia on the next voyage across seas?"

"Absolutely, sir, only a few trips to be made before the shipments are ended," Officer Taft confirmed, beads of sweat dripping down his temples.

"When will this voyage begin?" Turpin had begun to bend forward and grasp the edge of his table.

"Next month, Judge Turpin. We are to leave on the seventh of September and arrive during the middle of April, sir." Taft's voice held the slightest tremor.

"No, that is unacceptable! The voyage must be shorter, man. I have not the patience to wait longer than seven months."

"I will," he swallowed, "do my best to shorten the voyage, sir."

Nodding to him, the Judge's hand gripped the table until his fingers turned white. "Are you willing to assist me, officer?"

"I will do whatever you ask, honorable judge!" Turpin stared inquiringly at the officer's stiffened shoulders.

"Good man. You are to deliver this letter," Turpin held the sealed paper upward. "Give it to the Head Officer of the Botany Bay penal colony establishment. If he does not receive this letter, or if the instructions which I have written are not followed, I swear to you, punishment will be sought, and justice, served. Do not take my words lightly, officer, and I encourage you to repeat my terms to the Head Officer."

Bowing his head to avoid the intensity of the Judge's stares, Taft assured him, "I will deliver the letter, sir. You may rely upon me, judge."

As Turpin held the envelope out, he tightened his hold before the officer could grasp it. "And allow me to repeat, obey my orders or be punished for disobedience. Not only you, officer, but the penal colony officials as well."

"It will be done, sir," Taft reassured, discouraged with each threat that the London judge made. The letter seemed to burn his fingertips the moment his skin made contact with it.

Letter in hand, the officer exited the building, intent on obeying the Judge's orders or die for his failures.

The Beadle could only stand beside the judge, pondering over his master's plans and the mysterious letter's contents. Whatever Turpin intended, the Beadle was nearly certain it would work towards his advantage. It always did one way or another.

Smirking at his plan, the judge stood and left the other judges to talk amongst themselves, the Beadle close behind.

**Botany Bay, Australia**

**January 5th**

While Johanna slipped inside the barrack, her master handed her a small bag containing two kitchen knives and a small revolver. The guard, unaware of the action, slid against the wall and leaned against it, exhausted from the heat as the old man bid his goodbyes to the girl. With a glance around the cabin and the men, as if remembering past times, the elder male turned and made his way down the road.

He swiveled to stare at her, reminding her of their bargain with his eyes as he constantly did.

It had been months ago and Johanna could still hear the desperate tone of her master as he begged her to take his life on the night of their escape. Her inmates reluctantly agreed with the old man's terms after hearing of the deal that he had struck up with the girl. Now, it was only a matter of months before the men must partake on their end of the promise.

"Good lord, few months pass and the old man has collected enough weapons to supply the damn British army!" Harry chortled as he stomped the bag into the hiding spot.

"I really don't think I can wait until May for this damn escape scenario. Why wait until May, John?" Thomas practically cried.

"Yeh know damn well why, man. Every convict will be rebellin' on the eleventh of May! Is there any better chance to run for it than the day our mates are distractin' our beloved officers?"

John's words could not have been truer. On the eleventh of May, all convicts had planned an uprising against their captors. To most, it seemed a perfect chance to dash for liberty, but others simply had neither the patience nor the enthusiasm to wait.

"For Christ's sake, it's only the beginning of the goddamn year!"

"Patience, you've been 'ere for six bleedin' years! A few more months won't kill yeh."

After a few mumbles of incoherent words, Thomas sank to the floor.

Apart from total preparation, the convicts had understood what was to occur on the eleventh of May. As John had instructed, they were all to "Run as if the devil was on your heels!" and "beg to the merciful Lord that they make it back home to their bitches of mothers."Johanna was only curious over the matter of when they would leave, for John had said that they would flee during the fall season. Once again, she was informed of the opposite seasons and understood that their fall months were indeed the springtime months of London.

When Johanna began to feel anxious as the day of the escape drew nearer, she started to question her father on what awaited their future in London.

"Once our names are changed, we shall return to our home on…?" he paused, waiting for Johanna to provide him with their home address.

"186 Fleet Street," she finished his sentence with a smile.

"Yes. And when we arrive, we will settle in…and look for your…mother."

"What if she is…" the girl could not even imagine the possibilities of her mother's fate.

"She is not dead!" Barker snapped, clenching his fists. Even he was surprised at his sudden outburst.

Ignoring her father's irritation, Johanna turned towards a new subject. "Did you have any good friends in London?"

Taken aback by her rapid change of topic, Benjamin stuttered at first, but began speaking in a clearer voice. "Y-yes…they won't recognize me, though. But you…"

Suddenly frightened by her unchanged appearance, Johanna wondered what she would do to conceal herself amongst the people of London. "I will cut my hair," was her initial thought. Lighter ideas formed in her mind. "…or wear an extraordinarily large hat," she grinned. To her disappointment, Benjamin did not partake in the humor. Deflated, Johanna said, "Let us worry about that bit later, though. Tell me more of your friends."

"I do not remember many of them…"

"Oh, you mentioned a landlady that owned a pie shop on the bottom floor! Can you tell me more about her?"

Jaw strained, Benjamin thought fiercely. "Eleanor...Lovett was her name. Her husband was," he exhaled. "I cannot remember. Mr. Lovett, I suppose."

"Can you describe Mrs. Lovett to me, please?"

Lost in past memories, Benjamin recalled all he could muster. "She was a kind woman. Slightly outspoken, but very affectionate…Stared quite a bit at me, though." From what he could recollect, the woman had openly gaped at him nearly every day, an unspoken emotion bursting from her large eyes. He could remember the friendly relationship she had held with her husband, though his name was elusive to Barker's memory. What came to mind when Benjamin spoke Eleanor Lovett's name? The intense looks Eleanor would send him, penetrating Lucy's figure and staring intently into his own eyes almost _longingly. _That was what came to his mind, but it was all he could hope to recollect.

"I wonder if she still resides in London with her husband."

Johanna's words fell upon deaf ears for Benjamin still sat, reflecting upon the woman that he seemed to remember quite accurately. Though the images of Eleanor Lovett were few, they were almost blindingly vivid.

"Father, do you hear me?" she asked while fanning herself from the heat of the room.

Always those brown eyes_, _those_ piercing _brown eyes.

"Father," Johanna whispered.

"What is it?" he questioned insensitively, whirling his head back towards her.

"You are very cross with me," she noticed when her studying glances had faded.

The observation seemed to exasperate him to an even higher extent. "I never said I was _cross."_

"You do not have to. Ever since I attempted to inform you of my past, you have been angry with me. Please do not deny it, papa. I see it in your eyes."

Raising a brow at her recent habit of calling him papa, Benjamin repeatedly refused to entertain her claim. "I am not angry with you, Johanna. I understand that you do not wish to speak of whatever happened in your past and I am _fine _with that." His tone claimed otherwise.

"Then what is wrong?" Her eyes traveled around the room, falling upon Peter and resulting in a shy smile from her lips as her pink cheeks lifted upward. The boy blinked, returned the smile, and received a few playful jests after the exchange was observed by other mates.

Noticing this, Benjamin rolled his eyes and muttered, "Anniversary of my arrest is near, that is all."

Now Johanna understood the reason for his callous words. "How many years have you been here now?"

"Fifteen," he muttered.

"But, I thought you had already spent…"

"No, last January was fourteen years. In a week I will have spent fifteen years here…on the largest god forsaken island in the world." He concluded his sentence with a depressed frown.

For him, time had crawled by, slowly and painfully. Even Johanna noted the slow months, how sluggish each day was, how the eleventh of May seemed to move farther away with every passing second.

The past seemed to have gone by so quickly, but the future simply refused to become the present.

Australia's winter had ended around the end of September. Each day was slightly warmer than the last. Oddly enough, Johanna had spent Christmas Day hiding under few trees that provided shade. That night, the men danced jovially, drunk the gin to its last drop, and danced inside their cabins to absolutely no music. Johanna had slowly waltzed with Peter for a moment, blushing when he complimented her 'pretty hair'. All the while, Benjamin stared at the girl from the corner of the room, eyes shooting towards the boy she danced with. When their slow dance had concluded, Ben rushed forward and tugged the girl away from the boy, receiving laughter from his daughter at his comical form of protection.

The true heat of Australia's summer began to increase with each day, beyond all new arrival's wildest expectations. And with the heat, came the dreams.

When Johanna had resided with Turpin, the nightmares were a reality. As soon as sleep would come, infrequent as it was, it would be single moments of solitary peace. Ever since the month of September, each night, Johanna would wake, shivering from her nightmares of dark shadows and grieving cries. Her father would do his best when it came to ridding the dreams from her mind, yet it was to no avail. As time made its way to that present day, Johanna could not purge the feeling in her gut that something _horrible_ was going to occur. Her mind could think of only so many events that could go wrong between then and the night of their escape, but truthfully, the thoughts were simply too terrifying to bear. With every day, Johanna feared that it would be the last she spent with her father. With every moment she laid to rest, she lay in terror that she would wake, alone.

Returning to the present day, Johanna comforted her father. "We're going to go back to London and everything is going to be the way it should be."

Pushing aside his petulant state, he pulled her to him and whispered, "I believe it."

A small voice in the back of Johanna's mind jeered, _"Keep trying to convince yourself that everything will be fine, Johanna. Keep trying…the effort is noble!"_

Face hidden by her father's sleeve, Johanna squeezed her eyes shut, petitioning her thoughts to focus on the good.

But no matter how hard she begged the premonitions would not be silenced. With each passing day, the impending impression of doom grew and grew. If only she could know that the truth behind these haunting presentiments would soon unveil itself.

**Please review. I will tell you this much: a horrible plot twist is rapidly approaching…**


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

**Botany Bay, Australia. February 22****nd****.**

The day was extraordinarily hot, delivering thick foams of sweat upon every man and woman that trod along the misshapen road. Movements were forced as the heartbeat of each walker nearly gave out sending the poor marcher into a daze of lightheadedness, topped off with swells of nausea and blackened vision. Death would have been a generous grant from the Lord himself, but only few received the gift.

This was _their _form of punishment. For the crime of lagging in their work, all convicts were lined up and forced to trudge down winding paths under the unmerciful glare of the hot sun. With the heat came exhaustion, and with the exhaustion came anger. Guards allowed foul words of displeasure to roll off of their tongues as they internally cursed the day they had been recruited to the blasted penal colony. If one man stumbled, if one woman faltered, their disciplinary beatings sent them into a whir of desperate panic and terrible suffering as they scrambled back to their mates and marched on, bodies sagging. Most carried another when their fallen comrades had given up, all too anxious for the whipping that would land them in another world of sensational darkness.

This had been the week's third punitive march.

Walter dropped to the ground, unassisted until Peter bent forward and grasped the sickly male's hand. It did not take him more than a few minutes to realize Walter's immediate death. Peter could only sigh and push on, leaving the man in the dust to be trampled on by somnolent prisoners. The guards eventually took notice of the 'stiff' and dragged his unmoving carcass out of the way. Sickening humor commenced when the sentries began to toy with the dead man's body, imitating a puppet's movements by raising his limp arms and having his dangling hand wave to the walking prisoners.

"Wave to the convicts, yeh fuckin' stiff!" they laughed with great mirth.

"Bloody bastards," Peter snarled as he took his place next to Johanna, "Thrice accursed sons of bitches!"

Clutching her father's arm tighter as they continued to walk, Johanna blinked in order to deter the large spots in her eyes from blocking her vision. The fuzzy throb in her mind caused her to shake her head a few times as her heavy tongue entreated for cool water to soothe her burning mouth. The only release she could find was when she closed her eyes and pretended that none of the horrors around her were happening.

_It was simply a walk with her father…only a pleasant walk in the sunshine. She would do this when they returned to London-everyday… _

"Eyes open, love," Benjamin reminded the swaying girl by his side. "I do not wish for you to fall."

Only seconds after he had advised his daughter to keep her eyes open, a woman tripped and fell to the floor. With blistering hands, she shielded her face as guards carried her thrashing body from the spot and began to clobber her stomach with their boots. The screams that flew from her cracked lips were soon muffled with gushes of her blood. The price to pay for her hesitation was her life. As soon as the guard fired his weapon, Johanna screamed and smacked her hands to her eyes, just as she had done months ago.

"_I wish to think of happier times," Rosemary had said before the shot was heard-the shot that had taken her tragic life._

"Keep walking, Johanna. Do not look behind you." Barker instructed as he drew her closer. The fright drained a portion of her mustered energy, tiring her.

Noticing Johanna's fatigue, Peter held his arm out to her. "It'll be fine, Johanna," he ensured as she eyed him skeptically. "Just take my arm and try not to fall, like he said." Offering a grin, the boy sent Barker a quick glance while the girl let out a diminutive, winded giggle and grasped his arm. Now she clung to both her father and Peter for support. Benjamin cocked his head to the side and sent Peter a grateful nod.

A puffing guard ran down the line of exhausted inmates, questioning each man on his previous occupation. When he finally reached Benjamin, the sentry drew in a breath and queried, "You…you're the barber, ain't yeh?"

Benjamin's response was another series of steps and a smooth, "Yes." He did not bother with a formal 'sir' at the end of his sentence. He never did.

But the man seemed too preoccupied to have noticed the con's informality. "Listen well, the Priest 'as an awful toothache, 'e does. And all 'e needs is to 'ave the bugger pulled out. Are yeh capable?"

"Yes," he answered again, apathetic.

"Well then, follow me!"

Before Benjamin turned to follow, he spoke lowly to Peter, "Boy, will you watch her?" Johanna breathed an uneasy sigh.

Winking towards the girl, Peter chirped, "Yeh can count on me, sir!"

Adrian rushed towards the line and pulled Johanna out before her father could make his way towards the Priest's residence. After whirling around to face the officer as he held the girl in a tight grip, Barker growled, "Put her back." He stood, like an animal about to pounce upon his prey, with livid breaths and fire burning among his dark eyes. Intuitively, he had taken a hostile step forward.

Only a small twitch of Adrian's lips depicted his true unease. A familiar triumphant gleam returned to his eyes when he remembered the gun that rested within its holster-how simple pulling a trigger could be… That sudden remembrance beckoned the officer's daring audacity. "Oh, don't worry 'bout her!" he mocked. "We'll be taking the girl with you just to make sure you behave around his Holiness. For if you become reckless," Adrian stroked her chest, brushing his fingers against her pounding chest, "I'm sure your little daughter will _convince _you to be more careful."

Barker's face went blank, and though the sun was shining in all of its glory, Johanna could swear she saw his already ghastly face pale even more. The menacing stance he held shrunk back, but the fire amongst his darkened eyes never dimmed.

With her own eyes, Johanna told her father not to worry. She was ready for whatever may come. He saw this, became rather proud of his child, and turned to follow the other sentry to the Priest's home for the tooth pulling. Each time the officer jerked Johanna around, though, tugging her violently and making her cry out in pain, she could see her father's shoulder's tense with suppressed rage. It must have taken him every ounce of his control to keep from spinning around and squeezing Adrian's neck until his eyes dripped with blood, ultimately killing him.

Though he zealously wished to do so…he did not. And every moment he heard his girl shudder from behind, an ounce of his control was clung to, but eventually lost. Benjamin appeared to be struggling with an invisible force outside, when in actuality, it was a battle that rested within.

"'ere we are," the leading sentry stated as he opened the door to a building, adjacent to the decaying church. As if it were an ominous warning, the door to the cabin creaked open until it was wide enough to step through.

There sat the priest, perched in a chair located in his parlor room. As he had previously preached cleanliness to each con, the rooms of his home were indeed sanitary, but the otherwise barren walls were littered with crosses and bibles lay scattered on nearly every table. Compared to other homes, the Priest held an orderly and almost spotless house.

The Priest, however, remained in disarray. Crumpled robes hung from his body as his brown hair fell into his face in an untidy fashion. Moans from the holy man filled the air while he clung to the right side of his face, applying pressure to the obvious toothache.

Benjamin was pushed forward while the officer informed the Priest of the prisoner's barbering skills.

"You brought a dangerous con into my home without even tying his hands?" the irritable man spat. His eyes closed while he massaged the aching spot, easing the ache. "Very well, I will forgive this one mistake, but see to it that he leaves my home restrained."

Johanna emitted a barely audible whimper in rejection, catching the Priest's attention.

"What is a girl doing here?"

This time, Adrian offered the direct response. "She is here to simply _ensure _her father's appropriate behavior whilst in your presence."

"So it is to be threats against a man's daughter?" a voice questioned from a nearby chair. When the face of the speaker turned towards the group, the Head Officer's face appeared.

"Well, sir, the male convict is rather precarious…" Adrian began to defend, but fell silent.

"I would love to stay and watch your sadistic ways, officer," the Head Guard muttered sarcastically, "but I am expected by a rather impatient sentry for an afternoon meeting. New arrivals, they never cease to agitate me." He applied pressure to his temples with his fingers as he stood.

"What does this one say, Mellor?" the Priest mumbled.

"Oh, he has a letter for me from a powerful official and I will be out of a job if I do not read it and follow the instructions listed…a tad bit more dire than most, in my opinion." The man almost laughed. "I best be off before he is admitted to the hospital on his first day." The holy man leaned forward to part with the officer, moaned in pain, and fell back into the chair.

"Relax yourself, father. I shall return after this ridiculous business with the officer has been settled." Walking past Adrian, he spoke lowly, "Behave properly, officer." The Head Officer slammed the door behind him.

The calm stretched until the Priest screamed, "Do whatever you please, just simply pluck this damn-" he bit his lip and crossed his chest, "Just pull the tooth, man."

Stepping forward, Barker mumbled, "Materials…?"

Sharply sighing, the Priest bellowed, "Mary!" A small child poked her head out from behind a back door, large eyes sparkling. Her red curls bounced lightly while she studied the gentlemen in uniform and the two strangers.

"Yes, papa?" she inquired sweetly, unaffected by his tone. Her eyes caught sight of Johanna, but flicked to her father's face when he spoke.

"Retrieve the pliers, child, and by god, be quick about it."

With a concerned frown, she skipped over to a cupboard and pulled the metal instrument after searching feverishly with dimpled hands. She closed the cupboard with a resounding thump and leisurely made her way forward.

"Here you are," Mary offered the instrument to her father, only he shook his head vigorously and pointed towards Mr. Barker. "Give it to _him_, girl!"

The poor child looked at the con uncertainly as she lifted the tool upwards. The tool quivered within her unsteady grip, depicting the youngster's minor alarm. "Here _you_ are, sir," her small voice repeated.

Benjamin's face offered a moment of visible softness as he took the tool, hardening once again as he caught a glimpse of his own daughter's face. Officer Adrian smirked as he grasped Johanna's arm tighter, making her skin pale from the pressure. She shifted uncomfortably in his grip.

"Go on, _barber,_" he spat, "or do you need your daughter's opinion on the matter?" Hair flew in her face as Johanna was roughly shaken. Inhaling deeply, her eyes flew to the floor to hide the true dread that she felt.

Her father needed all of his concentration.

Mary studied the violent gestures with wide eyes before fleeing to the safety of her previous room.

Barker did not hesitate for another second. Hands steady and accurate, Benjamin handled the pliers and suggested the Priest open his mouth. When he had done so with a groan, the prisoner placed the tools within the man's mouth, found the sore spot, and began to gently jiggle the tooth around.

"You know it is a shame you never accepted my offer of protection earlier when I had offered it, Johanna," Adrian ridiculed mindlessly. "You would not be in this position if you had."

The girl looked at the officer's face in aversion, turning swiftly when his eyes caught hers.

"You look at me as if you wish me dead! How," his pause was deafening, "_spiteful_ of you. What say you, father, on the matter of your daughter's hateful ways?"

"Please stop," she begged miserably.

"You do not find my question appropriate, little girl? Would you rather I not speak at all?" Pushing her forward, she bit back a yelp of terror.

The convict sharply turned and observed his jostled girl. The remaining restraint inside of him was visibly fading. The pliers in his hand seemed to tremble violently, not out of fear, but because of Benjamin's lethal vehemence that could be subdued for only so long.

"Christ, would you cease this pointless mockery, officer?" the priest demanded.

"But I do this in the name of the Lord, your holiness!"

Shrugging in surrender, the priest instructed Barker's assistance to resume posthaste, thus resulting in the barber's continuance in his work and the officer's pitiless banters.

"Oh, yes, you think me a heartless man, do you not? Ah, I am not entirely without a heart." Adrian reached for Johanna. As soon as her body made contact with his, she began to struggle.

Like a bird trapped within a cage.

"So now the furious side of you is shown, eh?" He laughed as she pushed against his restraining arms. "What a thrill!" he yelled as he clutched her hair within his palm.

"N-n-no," she shrieked, pushing her face away from his. "Don't touch…m-m-." Speech ceased and hurried breaths began.

"Why would I release you when this particular position is so enjoyable on my part?" he laughed.

The other officer in the room backed away, disturbed by his partner's actions.

The dark voice of Benjamin silenced all sound. "Release her." His body faced the wall opposite his daughter and the guard manhandling her.

"Shut your fuckin' mouth, barber, and get back to the damned tooth!" the sentry hollered, manically.

Holding up the Priest's tooth within the grip of the pliers, Ben spat, "It _is_ out."

Adrian fell shockingly silent.

In a much merrier mood, the Priest's head rolled on his shoulders. "Oh, the pain-gone!" He wallowed in his own pleasure before sighing sweetly, "Now get out."

Glad to be on his way, the aloof officer leapt towards the door. Benjamin slammed the pliers upon a bible-scattered table and prepared to claim his daughter.

_He would get her back even if he had to take the pliers and snap the officer's fingers off, one by one._

"Guard, we had a deal. Restrain the prisoner."

Johanna opened her mouth to object, but was silenced by her father's foreboding look stating that she was not to utter a sound in opposition.

After the officer produced the rope, he sloppily tied Benjamin's hands behind his back and tugged him outside, rolling his eyes at the unnecessary precaution.

Without so much as a word of gratitude, the Priest saw the group out and shut the door behind them.

And just as soon as they had set foot on the ground, the sentry unsheathed a small knife and cut the prisoner's bonds. "Alright, get back to the lines," he mumbled with an accusing glance towards Adrian, who had remained passive for nearly the whole time. But he still had not released his hold on the girl.

"I look forward to our next meeting, girl," the sentry spoke softly, dangerously. She writhed in his grip, attempting release.

Through with it all, Benjamin reached towards his daughter and yanked her away from the officer in a single pull. Glaring, the con wrapped a protective arm around the child's shivering figure and turned away. His steps were hasty until they had disappeared from both of the guards' views. And once they had, Barker transformed into a different man.

Hauling her to the side of a cabin, he roughly thrust the girl against a wall and looked fiercely into her frightened eyes. "Did he hurt you?" Beneath his stiff hands, he could almost sense the panic traveling through her blood.

Gazing at her body as if she were self evaluating, Johanna shuddered, "N-n-n-no…h-h-he d-did not."

"You will tell me immediately if you are injured?"

Unable to pass forth the words needed, she jerked her head up and down.

This did not seem to relax him at all. Body still tense with unease, he studied the child before him more attentively. "Do you need to rest for a moment?" he asked in a softer voice.

Without answering, she slid to the floor, heart still pounding. While stroking her hair, he lulled, "Catch your breath."

Her brief period of relaxation soon ended. "Alright, I…think I am better now. We must return…to the others."

Skeptical, the man ordered, "Stand straight."

Her pathetic attempt to follow his command resulted in her miserable whisper, "I can't."

"I figured as much," Benjamin sighed as he grasped her arm and pulled the girl to her feet. They headed towards the line of convicts and continued the perilous march with crushed spirits.

**Head Officer's Quarters**

"Just another damn officer…," the Leading Sentry mumbled to himself while leisurely tapping his fingers on the wood of the desk, "just another damn officer on another damn hot day in front of my damn cluttered desk."

_The meeting had been set for two in the afternoon and still, he waited! The newly arriving officers appeared to become more careless with each docking ship._

"Officer Adrian, you were behaved, I trust?" he questioned in order to fill the lingering stillness.

"Of course, Head Officer Mellor," he whispered. Something in the sentry's voice was bitter, almost livid.

The Head Officer scowled at the man's harsh tone. Before he had the chance to comment, though, the late sentry came rushing through the doors of the cabin, in a wild frenzy.

"My apologies, sir," he babbled, "I lost my way after my lodgings were shown to me. I have no excuse."

The Head Officer raised his hand in a gesture of pardon. "It is fine, officer. Now, state your name and the reason for your urgent desire to meet with me."

"My name is Richard Taft, sir," was his frantic reply.

"Well, you may address me as Head Officer Mellor," The Head man informed. "What is it that you wished to tell me…a letter I believe it was?"

"Yes, Head Officer Mellor…it was." Taft dug through his pockets and produced the letter, sealed and ready for its contents to be read. "I was instructed to bring it to you, sir."

"And who told you this?" Mellor questioned as he observed the letter's seal within his fingers.

"I believe all will be revealed as soon as you read the letter, sir." Taft dabbed at his face with a handkerchief and stuffed the dampened material back into his pockets.

A scowl crept onto the Head Officer's face. He pondered on the odd ways of the sentry as he ripped open the envelope and studied the words written upon the parchment. Now he was a bit more concerned.

All was then exposed.

By the time he had finished reading the paper, Mellor's frowning face was now burdened with an expression of complete shock.

"This…request is quite...out of the ordinary." The Head Officer read the letter once more, confirming the very words of which he had read. It was all there, and yet, it was simply too hard to accept as true. A soft sigh was heard as the paper brushed the wood of the officer's desk, slipping from the man's grasp.

"What does it say, sir?" a standing guard questioned while leaning forward to catch a glimpse of the letter.

The Head Sentry gave the note a long, complex stare before handing it towards the men on duty to read. One by one, a man read the letter and passed it to the next, each face unreadable after studying the commands written.

"This man is threatening us," a uniformed teen exclaimed.

"Are we to do as the judge says?" Adrian inquired after he read the letter for himself. A dark brow rose as he waited for his leader's response.

Annoyed, Mellor tore the letter out of an officer's hands and scanned the words. "This is a violation of rules. Judge Turpin cannot do this…" His confidence faltered. "I am correct, aren't I? Judge Turpin cannot do what is expressed in that letter."

"Sir," Taft explained, "Judge Turpin made it very clear that he would seek severe punishments for every official who does not follow the orders listed. Even if his wishes were against the laws rules, he is a very powerful man…Lord knows what the most commanding man in England can do if he is not obeyed."

"But this is not acceptable!" The Head Officer argued, not prepared to give in to the reality of the situation. He was a reasonable man, but to him, the request was balderdash.

"He is a law official, I am sure that Judge Turpin has made it perfectly legal to do as he wishes. Please, sir, he made it quite clear the urgency of this situation. I had to speed up the trip here, for he could not wait! We were supposed to dock next month, sir. I kept that letter," he indicated the paper with his chin, "locked away and dared not risk leaving my cabin for fear of losing it. It is obviously important, sir. Please, listen to reason."

"I will not agree to this, Officer Taft."

"God damn it!" Taft shouted as all control turned into panic. "Do you realize what Judge Turpin will do to us if he realizes that we disobeyed him? He will not take your job, Mellor; he will take your life! He will take all of our lives!" The officer had spread his hands outward in desperation, flinging them about with ever shouted word.

Sweat pooled from the Head Officer's grey scalp. _Was this truly worth his life? Would he feel proud as his head was placed on the chopping block in front of his family…his daughter…?_

"What must I do?" he questioned hoarsely, at a loss for all other words.

Now the officer was giving the orders. "Do as the letter says. Find the girl and read it to her. And then, follow the remnant of his written instructions."

Head in hands, Mellor felt the urge to smash Taft's head against a wall. For once, he was defeated. "If that is what needs to be done."

"I assure you, sir, once the instructions are carried out, this whole scenario will be but a memory.

**Prison Barracks-that night.**

"Oh, come now. Don't drink all of it!" Harry screeched as he snatched his flask from Peter. "Damn it, boy."

After a weak grin, Peter puckered his lips from the alcohol and leaned his head against the wall.

"Bastard officers were true _angels_ today, were they not?" Jack murmured to Barker, who in return, nodded and sent Johanna another inspecting stare. She had been, as she said, unscathed since that afternoon. The only evidence that truly depicted her trauma from the day was the quiet manner in which she sat.

"So, my new inmate," Robert grinned towards a nearby male. "Yeh bring any news from London?"

"Nothin' good, Robert…times is hard in London. Oy, yeh know that the London judge is hangin' almost every woman brought to 'im on trial?"

Johanna's head shot upright as she listened intently. The London Judge…only one face could come to her mind.

"No," John admitted, "we didn't know that. Well, ain't that a shame, bloody coward."

"Yea, the mass graves fillin' up with pretty girls…true shame."

After a brief banging on the door, a group of officers piled in the room. The experienced convicts leaned back, prepared for the worst, the inexperienced shrunk away in trepidation, and the audacious grinned in preparation for crude jokes.

Out of respect, the Head Officer seemed to have bowed his head.

"Gentleman…and lady," he murmured with a small smile. "Leave," he instructed the officers over his shoulder. "Wait for my return outside."

They did so, obediently. Noiselessly…

"Yeh 'ear 'ow 'e just tells the men to leave and they do it? That is wot I call respect…be nice to 'ave some bloody respect…"

"Well, it you all know who I am," the Head Officer started.

"Of course we know who yeh are, officer! Don't tell nobody but the rumor is you're my secret lover." Harry blinked his eyes with mocking affection.

Laughter ensued, and for once, the Head Officer did not reprimand the men. He simply stood and allowed them to continue with their rude humor. This is what made the laughter end quicker than anticipated.

"To what to we owe this 'onor, sir?" Dill nervously inquired, though attempted to sound nonchalant.

From the folds of his shirt, the Officer brought forth the letter. "I have a note. Rules being at their strictest, I have taken the precaution of reading it before delivery…and it…is for Johanna Barker." He squeezed his eyes shut with the pads of his fingers, notably strained.

Curious, the girl sent her father a quick glance. He returned her glimpse, just as inquisitive as she was.

"Oh, well, that is a treat! Yeh think we can 'ave a bloody chance at writin' to our families or is that girl an exception?"

Mellor's eyes flew towards the speaker. "Damn you, Harper, you know I would not give the girl a letter unless it wasn't a matter of life and death!" the stressed guard snapped as he ran his free hand through his hair.

A pregnant silence lasted for a moment.

"Read it, then," John commanded the officer. "Tell us what is so dire."

Staggering forward, the guard displayed the broken seal to the girl. "Do you recognize this seal?"

Johanna stared at it, baffled, until a memory clicked into place. "Oh, god," she whispered, fear encasing her to the point of hyperventilation. Benjamin placed his hand on her shoulder, unsure of what was happening.

"Do you or do you not, recognize this seal?" Mellor demanded yet again.

"Yes," she replied miserably.

"Then name the owner of it." He did not realize his hands had begun to tremble.

"The owner of that seal…is a judge that goes by the last name of…" cries shook her entire body, "Turpin."

Benjamin felt his breaths stop within his chest, refusing to administer the air he needed to his lungs.

"That is correct, girl. I suppose I should read it to you, but I must know that you are prepared to hear what your _previous guardian,_ by the looks of it, wishes. Are you indeed ready?"

_Of course she was not ready! Did the man truly believe that she was willing to here the wishes of her torturous guardian?_

"Read it."

Breaths quivering, the Head Officer gazed at the letter. Each written word was spoken aloud to the silenced men.

_Head Official,_

_I have written this note in hopes that it is handed to a man worthy of my trust. I request that this letter be read aloud to a girl by the name of Johanna Barker who will have turned sixteen last year. A description of her would be blonde hair, small frame, and blue eye-_

The officer stopped. "My apologies, it would appear that the judge had become rather careless with his writing. It is quite hard to decipher, for there are a few ink blotches, so I shall skip to the next readable bit…"

_Should my demands be ignored or my commands carried out in a manner that is far from as I have instructed, I will seek justice. And my word is true, officer, I do not make idle threats._

_During the month of January of last year, it had occurred to me that my ward, Johanna Barker, had ran from our home in an attempt to seek some sort of unethical thrill outside of the law's limits. She, I was informed, was apprehended for minor thievery a week or so later in the town of Birmingham. Afterward, I was also informed of her sentencing to the Botany Bay penal colony in Australia._

_Mind you, I had learned of my ward's fate during the late days of last August and made a hasty effort to compensate for this case. I had only just viewed the case of Miss Barker when I realized her sentencing seemed a bit harsher than I would have given. Seeing that I sentence my prisoners with mercy, I brought this matter to the judge who had sentenced Miss Barker. We have all come to an agreement. _

_The prisoner, Johanna Barker, will be returned to me on the next ship to London. I understand that there may not be another ship bound for London for a few weeks if not months. And my mind sees no reason why a ship cannot be prepared for transport within a week. Now, I have been previously informed that the journey from Australia to London may take up to eight months. This, however, is a time limit that I cannot accept. I will be expecting the arriving ship to dock in London harbors before the month of this year's August and I will be expecting my ward upon that ship as well. _

_Once Johanna is with me again, I shall lecture her and make clear the error of her ways. I can assure you, officer, her face will not be a face you see on the streets ever again. Until then, I request that she is treated with decency, for she is indeed more civilized than the convicted women she has been placed with._

_If the girl is listening attentively, please tell her I send my warmest of greetings and ask her why. Why had she run from me when I offered her every bit of my heart, and still, she unmercifully trampled it? I only wish to bring her back and put this dreadful occurrence behind us all._

_This is my final decision. Do as I have instructed and I rewards will be given. I am sure that my selected delivery officer has informed you of your fates if you are to disobey me. _

_Once again, tell Miss Johanna I send my greetings and I am anxious to have her in my home once again. _

_Signed,_

_E.J. Turpin_

"That is all," the officer concluded. "So you see what needs to be done, Miss Barker." No longer could he look at her suffering expression.

All Johanna could possible do was shake among the lingering presence of her guardian's words. She felt nothing, she wished to feel nothing, and her face revealed absolutely…nothing. This was her fate and she would face it like the men sentenced to death for the escape attempt: with acceptance.

…_Anxious to have her in my home once again…_

The meanings behind his words of false adoration, it was enough to make her stomach bubble with nausea. How he made it seem like he truly wished to have her home because he cared for her! The statements were almost offending. Turpin wanted her home for only one reason…and the fact that she would never see her father again-never hold her true papa-would kill her. She was going to die.

And these thoughts brought forth almost no emotion. Johanna was utterly numb.

Benjamin stared at the floor, face too multifaceted to be understood. It had seemed that he had not taken a single breath when the letter was being read aloud to the prisoners. And he still felt no desire to breathe after it had finished. He could not look at his daughter; only one thought could come forth into his broken mind.

_His girl was going to be taken from him…and this time, he would never see her again. Even if he lived through the escape, he would not be able to claim Johanna from Turpin. They were to be parted forever._

"Miss Barker, from the form of this man's writing it appears he is indeed impatient to have you back with him. We must follow his instructions, I am sure you understand. A boat will be prepared with those who have served their sentences and you as well. Be prepared to leave in a week's time." Before the man could turn to leave, he walked past every unmoving con in the room and stood before the child. Staring down at her lifeless figure, he stated one simple sentence that unmasked his persistent suspicion of the child's obscured past. "You would not have run from his home if he was not hurting you."

"No," she replied without looking at him. "I would not have." All emotion suddenly rushed towards her, knocking down the barriers surrounding her unfeeling heart. Grief, apprehension, antipathy…it all crashed full forced into her mind, sparking a raging war within her small body. She writhed in agony under its pressure; fists clenched as she fought it all, but lost herself in the enclosing sense of loss.

Nodding to himself, Head Officer Mellor turned to leave. Before he could, however, he paused by the door and glanced at the tormented girl and her expressionless father, mourning the lost pair. "I am truly, sorry, Johanna…so terribly sorry."

**Please review and try not to…er…hate me :)**


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

The concept that one's life could be stripped of all joys with the reading of one letter was almost inconceivable. And yet, it had happened. One single letter had robbed Johanna Barker of thought, of sight, of hope…There was nothing left in this world to live for, seeing that her only reason for life was now to be ripped from her forever. The devastating effects of this letter seemed to be the same for Benjamin Barker, only it was not depression that immediately gripped him. No, it was a profound abhorrence and a bitter longing for vengeance.

After receiving the news, Johanna sat, struggling internally with the battle of emotions that tore at her body, violently, as if it were actual hands beating on her small frame. Officer Adrian ran in the moment the other officers had departed and his face, for once, held strong unease as he faced the girl, clearly uncaring of her emotions, but seeking a certain purpose with weak determination; _desperate _determination.

"Johanna, I am well aware that I was not entirely proper with you…" His eyes darted to the impassive Benjamin by her side and a gleam of panic made his auburn eyes sparkle. "I would like to know that I am forgiven for my unacceptable behavior."

John sent him a harsh stare before anyone could speak. "Why, officer? Is it because the girl is to be returned to the most powerful man in _all_ of London and you fear 'e will strip your title if and _when_ 'e 'ears of your mannerisms? Honestly, this is pathetic."

The young sentry bit his lip, signifying that John had named the exact reason for his yearning of exoneration. "Am I forgiven?" he inquired, his falling patience straining the supposed cordial plea. His clasped hands were held out like an offer of friendship, when it was blatantly obvious that this offer of alliance was tainted.

Now it was Benjamin's turn to address the pestering sentry. Standing tall over his daughter and facing the sentry boldly, he gazed into the officer's tanned face without even the slightest trace of unease towards the penalty he may receive for his next chosen words. "Go to hell, _officer_," he whispered with blazing eyes while spitting out the name as if it were pungent on his tongue. Still, he remained undaunted. _What could the officer do to him now? What punishment could truly be worse than the tortures he had already experienced?_

Adrian nodded his head, as if expected the rejection, and turned to leave. The way in which his shoulders sagged signified his utter surrender to the prisoner, leaving him to wallow in his own self-pity with a heavy heart.

"Eat shit, officer, and die a slow death!" Jack remarked while staring hard at the floorboards. The area in which he stared just so happened to be the section where they hid their weapons. Contemplatively, his eyes ran over the dirtied wood, wishing to yank the boards upward and make use of their stored firearms. Perhaps it was restraint, or maybe it was common sense that kept his body still.

"Yes, eat shit, officer!" Peter joined in, pleased to defend the girl he had befriended. The pride within his stature shrunk and his body shot backwards as Adrian swung around to face the boy, clearly enraged by the persistent comments. The boy was a perfect target for the officer's anger; a helpless boy with no stamina or courage to fight a burly guard such as himself.

"When you go home, boy, if you ever do, tell me how worn out your whore mother's side of the bed is." Passively, Adrian smirked at his sexually-intimidating remark and backed away to the door of the barracks. A faint, perverse grin made his lips spread as he stepped into the night air.

"Aw, come back," Peter yelped while getting to his feet, jaw clenched with intense rage. "Come back and say that again!" Running towards the door, he ripped through the doorway and yelled consistent threats in the parting direction of the officer. Convicts rushed forward and grasped the boy by his shoulders, tearing him away from the doorway and holding him back to avoid unwanted confrontations.

"Don't touch me, goddamn it!" Peter shouted, swinging his fists wildly. "Let me 'ave 'im, just for a moment! I swear he'll look like a man without skin when I'm bloody through with 'im!" Like an animal in a cage, he fought for liberation against his inmate's arms, the iron bars that had locked around his thrashing body.

"Sit down, yeh mindless bastard!" Jack shrieked while pushing the boy down to his knees. "They'll bloody kill yeh if they 'ear yeh say that, boy!"

"What is 'e waitin' for, then?" the young male demanded furiously as he scrambled to a standing position. "Let 'im try and kill me, we'll see who the better man is! Thinks 'e can push around everyone weaker than 'im, the sadistic pansy!"

For a second time, the door to the room swung open. Peter pushed against his captors and struggled to reach the door, prepared to tear Officer Adrian limb from limb. The mob of prisoners pushed against his charging body, screaming protests against the boy's actions. But instead of another unwelcomed sentry, it was the old man that Johanna had been employed for.

Peter's struggling body took his eye's notice and he studied the boy with interest. "Son, sit down and take a few breaths," the man instructed.

"But-"

"For the Lord's sake, do as I say and take these personal matters into play on the night of your escape!"

"I want to kill 'im now!"

"Please, Peter," Johanna wept, reminding many of her presence. "Don't speak like that…please, do not." Her breath caught in her throat, causing her to gasp for air while tears burdened her watery breaths. One look at the girl's flushed skin and Peter sat crossed-legged on the floor, subdued after his disturbing outburst. A few cuss words were muttered from where he sat, but the boy was otherwise calmed after Johanna's plea. He hated to see her cry…

Pleased with the boy, the old man turned towards Johanna, the worst of his fears confirmed by her despondent weeps. "I have heard everything," he whispered, gaze falling from hers.

She offered a cracked grin while sobs rolled through her entire body, starting from deep within her chest. "Of course you did, sir," she mumbled, recalling the deep discomfort she had felt when she had first met the old man and learned of his inexplicable ways. How long ago that seemed!

"I must say, this is a rather unfortunate turn of events, girl." His tone did not comfort her in the least.

Benjamin sent a spiteful glare in the old man's direction as if to maliciously say: _Thank you for the clarification._

"To make light of the situation, at least you, Benjamin, do not have to worry about the welfare of your daughter on the night of your flight," the man pointed out. If only he could have forced a more optimistic pitch into his voice, perhaps then he would have been a tad bit more credible.

Ben's hazardous stares dropped, replaced with a look of distorted melancholy. "If I live to see London once again, we will never be reunited. No, not while the judge has her." Even the slightest mention of the judge stimulated the same perpetual odium that had settled at the bottom of his cold heart.

Moments passed of silence, save the few that kept small conversations in the corner of the cabin once the guards had departed. The elderly gentleman gazed at the dirtied ceiling, thinking to himself, for his brow was furrowed and his eyes seemed to search for an answer to an unresolved question within his stirred conscious. "Do you wonder why the judge of London is hanging girls more frequently than he should?"was the sudden question, laden with a warning edge in his voice.

A scowl soon spread on Benjamin's lips. His instinctive hand found its way towards the girl by his side in reaction towards the ominous query. "You think it is because of…" The con paused with difficulty over the matter, "he is killing girls because…" The answer flew to his mind, but remained within his strained throat, begging to remain there and not even be considered for a second.

"Because his ward ran from him, he is killing girls. He wishes innocent females dead…and I presume he wishes the same for Johanna."

With watery eyes, Johanna looked at her master. "H-h-e is going to k-k-kill me." To her horror, it was not a question. The assumption seemed to take on a more realistic feel than she could have ever imagined.

"It was only a presumption, girl. Killing you would be a rather drastic decision, of course; and for the sake of argument, he would not go through all of this trouble just to have you dead once you have returned. Perhaps he truly wishes to have you home and took his aggression on the apprehended girls of London." Smiling, the man offered what he could to soothe the frightened Johanna, but it seemed his efforts were to no avail.

Johanna wished to nothing more than scream at every man for their blasted ignorance. _The judge would not kill her directly! He would proceed to torture her with each passing day until it was her agony that claimed her life. Judge Turpin would be assistance in her death, not the reason for her immediate murder. The fact that she would not know if her father was living or not would certainly not be a stable subject for her mind to ponder upon either, possibly resulting in an even speedier death. No matter what, though, she was clearly doomed. _

"I must be off, now. Don't think of this matter, girl…Relish the time you have with your father. That is all the advice I seem to be able to give," the old man sighed. With sudden movements, he produced a long knife from his belt and threw it to the floor. "Put it with the rest," he muttered while looking at the weapon scornfully.

Robert bent forward and lowly expressed his gratitude towards the man. The planks were pulled and the weapon, stowed away for later use.

The old man departed without a single glance towards the girl to hide the true depression in his gaze, the convicts sought their beds, and Johanna remained impassive through it all. When her father tugged on her arm, signifying that she sleep, all that the girl seemed capable of was closing her eyes and allowing the tears free passage from her lids and down to her cheeks.

"You know I cannot live without you," she whispered to him, soft voice deafening him. Her tone held a forewarning within it, as if to say: _I will die after our last day together has been spent. I will surely die._

The comment seemed to upset him more than the deliverance of the fateful letter. "You will have to, Johanna," her father replied vigorously_. How could she even suggest…had she no hope…?_

"No, I do not think that I can, father." A look of absolute certainty crossed her face, certainty that shattered not only her heart, but his as well. "I _know_ that I cannot live without you."

Kneeling before her, Barker instructed, "Look at me." Obviously undermined by the distress of it all, Johanna shook her head feverishly, sending a set of tears flying through the air wildly. Using the tips of his fingers, the man forced her face towards his, leaving her with no other option but to stare into his dark eyes. "You will fight to live, Johanna. No matter what happens to me, no matter what the outcome of all of this will be, you are going to face each day, even if you truly wish for it all to end. If you fight, then I assure you, as long as there is still breath in my body, I will be doing the same."

It was as if she were to speak when she opened her mouth, but quaking cries slipped out instead. The passion beneath his words was enthralling, claiming her ability to articulate, though she truly did not wish to speak to begin with.

"Swear to me that you will do as I say."

Shaking her head, Johanna made an effort to avoid agreeing with her father's demands. He, however, would not allow it.

"Swear to me!" he repeated again, intensity seeping from his gaze. It was his gaze that tore Johanna's barriers, leaving her defenseless against his persistent demands that she continue living.

Honesty was her only resort. "I swear to fight for my life, father, but I cannot ensure this battle will be won."

And these were the last words she spoke before her breaths stilled and she fell forward, unable to withstand the pain of the day any longer. It was not certain if she had fainted or chosen the trouble-free sleep suddenly; all that was definite was her breaths had slowed and her body was now lifeless in Benjamin's arms, a form of shielding herself from the vindictive ways of world.

It was as if he were holding a dead girl in his arms.

And the week seemed to go by, faster with each passing second, when all they wished was for each moment to last a little bit longer than the last. Each night was a ritual, a ritual of father wiping the tears from his daughter's swollen eyes that were cold upon the touch, but freely flowed with every thought of the night being near their last. And when the eventual night had come that was indeed their last, it was of course, the most painful. By far, it was the most painful…

Ben had not released the girl from his embrace that last night. For a week, he had refused to allow a single tear to fall and betray his true internal pain. But now, the tears filled his eyes without leniency, though they never fell. Johanna clutched his shirt as they sat upon the bunk, waiting for the sun to rise and signify the ending of everything they had learned to live for. Every muscle in his body screamed in protest against the child in his arms, though the ache in his heart was far greater in comparison. He would hold his girl forever, if it meant he could keep her _with_ him _forever_.

The still of the night was serene, but mockingly so. Perhaps the night wished to taunt the ruined family, expressing the peacefulness around them but refusing to give them even the smallest bit of it. But both father and daughter remained loyal to the night, even when it seemed to have deceived them. The hours of darkness were the only period that they had shared together and nothing, not even their parting, would change that. When the uncertainty of darkness washed over each of them, they would be in the other's comfort, be they alive or dead; be they separated or united as one.

The true betrayal was unmasked, though, when the sun had begun to rise and send its blinding rays over the landscape. It was the morning that was the true traitor, for this morning was their last, and would remain their last for the duration of their lives.

Only one guard came by to claim the girl for her departure that morning. He entered the cabin and observed the changing men, whom had stilled as the sentry cleared his throat to announce his arrival. It appeared to be Richard Taft, Judge Turpin's intimidated messenger.

"I'll give yeh a few minutes, Miss," the officer declared almost _sorrowfully_ as he bowed his head and receded to the closest wall.

She nodded in reply, incongruously composed. If anything was to be done, it was self-control, for if she lost herself, not even _she_ knew where she would find herself again.

Turning towards her father, Johanna waited for him to speak or embrace her-anything. He seemed incapable of even the simplest of movements…she could only wait for a motion that could possibly never occur.

"Well, Little Lady, I suppose this is the last will be seein' of yeh," John began instead. He walked forward and placed a light grin on his lips, stroking at his beard in the warmly familiar fashion. "Yeh behave, now." The smile vanished quickly, as if it had not even been there. Friendliness seemed to have failed and beneath his hard stare, Johanna detected a mournful shadow darken his eyes.

"Thank you, John, for everything," she answered with a quick embrace. Nearly all of the men inside the barrack now rushed forward towards Johanna, anxious to say their goodbyes, agonizing as they may be.

"Goodbye, Johanna," Peter whispered with a small peck on her cheek. "You..." he grimaced, "you have…pretty hair...I always loved you-you're hair." He plucked a golden strand between his fingers, admired it, and tucked it behind her ear.

"Is that the best you can do, boy?" Robert chuckled as he offered the girl a small hug.

"Best of luck, girl," Jack murmured as he patted her shoulder. "Give that judge a good kick where it 'urts, will yeh?"

Her replying giggle was a pitiful sound. "I'll try, sir."

The old man had arrived for parting words as well. "It has been both an honor and a pleasure, Johanna," he began softly. "I thank you for all that you have done…and do not forget my words, girl, for this is the last I shall tell you." His old hand gave her limp one a gentle squeeze. "Do not be terrified to live. Death can only be given when a purpose has been fulfilled in one's life. You have so much to fulfill; do not succumb to the bereavement that surrounds you."

The painful pang in her chest increased as she remembered that her master was to be killed on his own accord on the eleventh of May. If any of the men managed to escape, there was a slim chance she may see them again, even if it was gazing from the window of her _home._ The elderly male, however would never be seen again. Never. Solemnly, she wondered why she had even agreed to the man's dire terms that day, though the reward for his release had been all too tempting.

When her goodbyes had been made, Johanna stood before her father once more, waiting for something to be said, be it him who spoke first or her. The seconds flew by, convincing her to be the first to speak or no words would be said at all.

"I love you," she whispered mournfully. It was all that the girl's mind seemed to produce, her undying love for the man that had shielded her with his life for every day that they had spend in each other's lives. She could vividly remember the first day she had laid eyes on her father…how his hands had steadied her before her body could be flung to the floor…

Barker's response was nothing more than a nod and an absent stare into her youthful face.

"Alright, we must be on our way now," the officer began as he placed a hand on the girl's shoulder.

From the midst of her restraint, unexpected, resounding cries tore from her chest. "I cannot…I thought I could do this!" Her arms flung around his thin body, refusing to leave him. "I'm not going…I can't go…I can't…I won't!"Sobs seeped through each of her words, horrible, miserable, pleading sobs. To his complete despair, Benjamin knew undoubtedly these were the cries that would plague him every night for the remainder of his days. He could almost feel his mind grasp the sound of her weeping, pushing it to the back of his memory and waiting for the perfect opportunity to bring the depressing sound forward long after his daughter was gone.

"Come, now, we must go," the officer repeated, indifferent. His feet stepped towards the girl.

The contact seemed to be more than Benjamin could handle. He stood arms by his side as she held him, fists clenching in antagonism and unclenching with remorse. Tentatively, he frowned, stealing the luxury of holding her just as he had many times before. If only he had savored those times more…

"I will not say it again," Taft warned as he tightened his long fingers around Johanna's frail arm.

She would not give in. Holding her father in an even tighter grip, Johanna muttered her refusals while placing her face in his shirt, breathing his scent, crying against him; seeking the consolation from him that had always seemed to banish the worst of her fears. Nothing seemed to actually rid her of her panic, that day, not even her father's small comforts.

"Hush, love, you know I will come home again," he whispered, low enough so only she could hear his words.

Little comfort was gathered from his words of promise. "Please, don't make me go, papa. Please, keep me here…with you."

The officer began to pull her body away from the con, tenderly, but becoming more forceful when the girl would not let the man go. Taft managed to wrap his arms around her body and unmercifully hauled her struggling figure away from the convict, face displaying annoyance, and Benjamin could swear he detected a hint of repentance within the glare of the officer's flashing eyes.

"No," the blonde wept as she slithered from the guard's grasp and clutched, yet again, at her father's shirt.

Benjamin was forced to do, what he felt, was the hardest thing he had done in his life-more difficult than punitive labor, more sickening than allowing the animals of men to torture him, more agonizing than coping with the uncertainty of his wife's fate. Trembling, the prisoner placed his hands on top of his daughters and gently pried her fingers away from his shirt.

A lone tear fell from her eyes, depicting her true agony, the blue eyes that he had always admired, now darkened with lost adulation and wretched understanding. As her hands grasped the air where her father once had been, Richard Taft gripped the girl in a tighter hold and pulled her away from the prisoners.

Benjamin could only watch as his girl was hauled from the room and pushed outside. No longer did she struggle against the man; she now walked as a prisoner awaiting his execution. Her surrender was visible in her sagging structure and it tore at Benjamin's heart until he felt the beating pulse spread fire through his body rather than blood.

"Well, that's it then," Jack declared, turning from the scene. Few men had moved an inch after pitying display, too mesmerized for words.

Benjamin found strength within his harsh loss and walked onto the sunlit terrain, staring after his daughter as she was led to the docks. Mindlessly, he followed after, ensuring she made it safely to the rowboats. Even when the guards demanded that he return to his post and begin work, Benjamin shrugged off their shouts and watched after the girl. With sunken eyes, he observed her being placed into a rowboat destined for a smaller ship in the distance. Other cons were waiting on the sand, shifting their weights anxiously. These were the men and women who had finished their sentence and wished feverishly to step aboard the boat destined to their freedoms. They were happy, so blatantly happy…and Johanna passed by them like a downhearted breeze.

"Get back to your post, yeh bleein' idiot!" A rough hand jerked Benjamin's body backwards and the con aggressively stepped forwards. He had to see her…he had to watch for the last time…

The line that connected the two was unmercifully tugged. Benjamin winced as he felt their bond being strained and grimaced when his mind reminded him that this pain would remain a part of him until he was finally dead. Looking back, Johanna offered her father once last glance as the guard continued to tug on her arm. Her gaze held nothing, and yet, it seemed to display everything. How his body begged to turn away from her glance! But he would not, for if he turned away then, he would have nothing left. After his daughter was shoved into a rowboat, the convict realized that he _did _have nothing left. It was odd how he could survive all those years without a hint of compassion, and now, his own daughter caused the very worst of his agony. Breathing in was a sin, for it sustained his miserable life; a life filled with anguish and hurt that he never dreamed he would undergo until it had become a nightmarish reality.

Johanna ran her eyes over her father's face one last time. Her parting gaze took in everything she could ever hope to store within her memory and she would keep his face locked within her mind, using it as consolation when she was to be returned back to…_him._ Her father's face and his face alone would be all that she could cling to, for the stars would madden her and the birds that would sing within her room would only be a constant reminder of the freedom that she once had and so quickly lost to her tormenter, yet again. Yes, only her father's face would remain in her heart, locked away with her willpower. Her eyes fell away from him.

Now at least two guards were attempting to heave Benjamin away from the spot where his feet remained, unresponsive. The only impulse to move was delivered when his child was safely brought out to the open waters, headed for the main ship. She had made it…and that was all he wished to see. The guards panted their astonishment when Benjamin pushed past them after their failed attempts to jostle his body. With each step he made towards the wording areas, his stored hatred blossomed within his chest until Benjamin could not see nor feel anything _but_ that abhorrence. Perhaps Johanna was lost to him forever, but his vengeance would never be taken, never be silenced. If he had to die trying, Benjamin Barker would kill Judge Turpin for taking his family; for whatever it is he did to his child.

Barker scowled as he picked up a shovel at his selected labor sight. No, Benjamin Barker could not kill Turpin, for Barker was not a cold-hearted murderer. Barker was a child, a naïve child, forced to thrive among the worst of anyone's nightmares. Perhaps when Benjamin created an alias, it would not only serve as a way to hide his identity, but a way in which he would _become _a different man. Benjamin was not a killer, but another man could easily be. All that was left was to ponder on another name…another life.

"I'm terribly sorry 'bout Johanna," Harry remarked as he dug next to Benjamin, offering a slight glance up from his work.

Throwing the shovel to the ground, Benjamin growled, "This," he pointed towards the area where Johanna had been taken, "changes nothing!"

The men looked up in surprise, alarmed that the man's shouts would stir an unwanted commotion.

"Ben, pick up your shovel. Guards are lookin' 'ere," John advised the stressed convict.

_Do not EVER call me Ben again, John!_

"Fine," Barker agreed as he gripped the tool in his hands and dug with double the intensity he had held previously. Each thrust of his arm was infused with a pleasuring thought of Turpin lying dead at his feet, blood dripping from his head. Fifteen years had passed and he could still remember the bastard's face; the greedy glint in his eyes, the tyrannous ways in which he ran the law.

Oh, yes, killing the judge would be all too satisfying.

**Somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean**

**Departing day to May 11****th****.**

Johanna had been taken aboard the ship bound for London and led by Officer Taft below decks. The _freed _prisoners were made to stay in cells, much like the ones they had remained in on their first journey to the island. Instead of residing with the ex-cons, Johanna was locked away in a cabin, forced to remain perched on her small bed, dreaming of her father sitting at the very foot of it. To her absolute distaste, the cabin represented too much of her bedroom in London. These memories sent her into a dizzy spell, gagging into a chamber pot located in the corner of the room, but incapable of vomiting because of her stubborn refusal to eat food since the day she had been ripped from the arms of her father. The girl would only eat a small bite of food, enough to sustain life, but anything more was considered a sin, a forbidden luxury.

Months had passed, each hour repeating the same dreaded schedule.

Nightmares visited her every night, producing sights that sickened her. But the image of her father's face remained obscured. Johanna did her best not to summon his face within her conscious…it was best to save the memory and not think of her papa at all. One's heart could only withstand so much.

That heart of hers seemed to take a fearful lurch when she learned that the days had dragged by, producing the date to be none other than May the eleventh. Not only was her pitiful heart beating simply to serve the promise she had made to her father, it was the day of which her heart gave forth painful throbs knowing that the day-that very day- was the day where men would live to tomorrow and others would die an agonizing death. But who would be the first to go, who would make it to the rowboats? All was left for the girl was a variety of mindless questions. Now, uncertainty was her only roommate.

"You must live," Johanna breathed over the gentle splash of water that rest outside of her window.

_If he was to die, then she would as well._

As Barker's daughter feared for his life across seas on the eleventh of May, Benjamin was prepared to fight for his. The men were ready for the rebellion, both anxious and fearful for the outcome of the night. The uprising would begin at sunset of that day and Lord only knew how it would conclude.

**This chapter was almost too sad for me to write! Next chapter will be the escape attempt...and I regret to say that not everyone is going to make it off of the island alive. Until then, please grace me with your comments!!!**


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18**

**Botany Bay, Australia**

"The blokes should start runnin' anytime now," John murmured as he studied the outside terrain from the cabin window with anxious eyes. "As I said many times before, run like 'ell to the rowboats. We'll meet once we've made it passed a few of those bleedin' guards. Are the weapons ready?" His eyes scanned the room, searching for a flaw in their plan before all was carried out into play.

A low rumble of approval sounded around the room. Each man in the room held a lethal weapon in his hand. Robert, for example, grasped a large hammer, Jack carried a hunting knife, and Benjamin held the pistol that his daughter had first supplied. His thumb ran over the gun's surface, thoughtfully scraping dried blood from the metal handle with his nail.

One of the men had taken a shaving razor for his use of a weapon. For a strange reason, the blade seemed to captivate Barker. A razor, of all things…a shining blade gleaming in all of its glory, prepared to shed the blood of all whom deserved it.

A malicious grin found its way to Benjamin's lips at the thought as he studied the sun lit terrain. The smile fell away as Ben pondered on his sadistic thoughts with a frown of disapproval. Never had he even dreamt to think in such a horrendous way, that is, until he had lost his Johanna…

_No, do not think of her! Just live through the night…live through the night._

"Look, they're runnin'!" Peter shouted as he pointed out a group of cons fleeing among the sun's blood colored rays. Guards were on their trail, aiming their firearms and firing at the fleers, just as they had done so many times before. Men received bullets in their backs and dropped like stones. The sentries believed it to be just another minor escape attempt, leaving the convicts to die in vain.

And it was a minor escape attempt that held little to no meaning, that is, until all hell broke loose.

From nowhere, shouts of unfathomable fury arose. Swarming the terrain, armed prisoners began to pummel the astounded sentries. All around, men and women were scattering in different directions, gun shots sounding with each passing moment, like boulders crashing to the surface of a stone floor.

"I suppose that would be our cue," John eagerly shouted, joy in his booming voice. James shivered and clutched at a bag of supplies as others, hysterically laughing, ran from the cabin. Whooping and yelling, they charged forward and thrust themselves in the heat of the battle. The outside sentry of their barrack received a knife in his ribcage, courtesy of a very irate Jack.

Adrenaline coursed through Benjamin's veins as they all piled out of the barrack, the weaker cons carrying bags filled with food and water. All around them, people were falling to the floor, prone in a pool of their own warm blood. Women screamed as men viciously ravaged them on the ground, children shrieked as they were trampled under the boots of runners. Their shouts for assistance melded into one horrifying sound, piercing the ears of each desperate prisoner.

One group of cons had managed to pry open the doors to the cells in the Rocks, releasing the tortured prisoners from their horrendous confinements. It was simple to spot a Rock's prisoner in the midst of the heated battles. A man from the Rocks could be described as an enraged savage, armed with nothing but the body he was born with and the fury that had swelled inside of him ever since his miserable carcass was cast into the hell that the officers had the audacity to claim was a cell. Those were the prisoners that fought as if it were a war, and in a way, it seemed that it _was _a war. Only, unlike war, this was their struggle to vanquish the officers, without the acceptance of even the slightest loss.

A sentry from the Rocks spotted Barker, stood before the con, and held himself in a deadly stance, ready for a sudden attack. "Ah, Barker, it _is_ good to see an old friend." He laughed harshly at a repulsive memory that only his mind could summon. "How you begged for mercy when those prisoners forced you down and-!" His laughter increased into a haughty sound as tears of mirth filled his unfeeling eyes.

Before he could decide his form of attack, Benjamin lunged at the sentry, smashing his skull in with the barrel of the gun in his hand. A grudge was resolved as Benjamin repeatedly battered the guard, smirking as he felt the bones crush beneath his unmerciful blows and heard the fallen man's groans of agony. He pointed the barrel of the gun towards his beaten opponent, unable to gather the loathing to pull the trigger of the Derringer and sink a bullet into the miserable bastard's chest. Instead, he turned from his old enemy and ran for another target, disgruntled by his weak sense of morality and the immense pleasure he had gained while beating the man to his near death.

A con screamed in anguish as he was unmercifully stabbed in the chest with a guard's knife, the blade puncturing holes within his torso. Blood cascaded to the ground, seeping through the dirt as if it were water. Those who were near could almost hear the faint crunch of the dying man's bones as the sharp metal penetrated his breasts.

Benjamin rushed towards yet another guard from the Rocks, intent on mustering the strength required to murder until his foot paused in the air, nearly crushing the skull of a petrified child. The young girl looked up at Benjamin in bottomless terror as she lay curled in a ball and trembling hysterically. Her blue eyes burned his; so much like…like…_her. _"Damn it," Benjamin hissed as he made a swift decision, lifting the girl in his arms and pushing past fighting prisoners. He offered a wince as the child wept into his neck, in fear of her own life.

"Stay in here," he coldly instructed the frightened girl as he shoved her inside a forsaken barrack. The child nodded obediently, still bawling, and coiled her body upon the material of a sagging cot.

Somewhat unsettled by his decision, Barker turned from the child and threw himself back into the action of the rebellion. Perhaps slaughtering a guard or two would be a more _pleasant_ choice.

Peter sent his fist spiraling through the air and landed it into an oncoming sentry with a resonant smack. He smiled devilishly at his bleeding knuckles and pounded the officer's face until the weakened guard fell to the floor, unconscious, hand on the holster where his unused gun rested.

Dill had gone on a mad rampage, shooting every officer in sight with demonic shouts, only stopping when he reloaded the gun with his stored bullets. Occasionally, his shot would miss, and unfortunately, the life of a fleeing prisoner would be taken.

John and Benjamin were reunited amongst the crowds, stood side by side, and assembled their escape group. Once all the men had gathered in the center of the swarm, John issued the order to flee, large voice barely heard over the united roar of the rebels.

And as if the devil were on his heels, Benjamin lurched forward and used all of his stored energy to push one foot in front of the other, lungs burning inside of him, the heat engulfing his throat, making it near impossible to gain a refreshing breath.

The docks came into view, as did the escape boats.

Behind him, his ears picked up the dangerously close sound of a bullet. Ducking his head, Barker swiveled around, only to see Robert bleeding on the floor, grasping his chest. The fallen prisoner gasped in anguish, shocked to see red liquid spilling between his clenched fingers and trailing down his shirt.

Falling to his knees, Benjamin roughly turned the man over. The shot was fatal, that much was certain, Benjamin noted as he pressed his fingers against the chest wound.

"Bloody leg," Robert stuttered through clenched teeth. "Gave out at the worst fuckin' time."

Beside the two, Peter collapsed, running a comforting hand over the dying man's forehead. "It's alright, Robert, everythin' is goin' to be fine." The boy knelt by his side with no intentions of returning to his feet and rushing from the scene towards promised freedom.

Shaking his head as perspiration dripped, the prisoner whispered, "Leave me," while he assessed the chance of his survival, determined that he was as good as dead.

Determined, both Benjamin and the boy simultaneously shook their heads.

"Damn you two, get out of 'ere!" he demanded forcefully, skin paling with each drawn breath.

Gunshots sent dirt flying into the air as their deadly bullets sunk into the earth. Peter looked up nervously as the shots grew nearer but remained by his companion's side.

Eyes glazing over, Robert's head sunk to the ground, releasing his tensed body from the distress of the wound, granting him a rapid and gracious death.

"No, yeh bloody bastard!" Peter shrieked as he jerked the dead man's head around. "Get up and run!"

Barker pushed against the loss that tugged at his heart, pulling the boy to his feet as Benjamin stood straight. "We 'ave to go," he commanded while heaving Peter away from the body.

_It was bound to happen; he could not let one dead man burden his escape. Just live through the night…_

"Barker, we cannot leave 'im!" the teen denied furiously while clutching Robert's lifeless head within his bloody hands.

A bullet flew past the boy, nearly sinking into the back of his head.

Not putting up with an argument, Benjamin grasped the boy by his shoulder and threw him forward. "Respect the man's last wish and get the hell out of here!" he shouted at the stumbling boy.

After the boy sent his dead mate one last glance, Peter nodded intensely and ran from the scene, Barker close behind. It was not long before they made it to the shore, piled with fleeing men. The rowboats were being pushed forward; convicts threw supplies into them, and jumped afterward, some landing inside as others missed their target and landed in the water with a soft splash. Peter ran towards a boat directly ahead, scrambling onboard as others urged him on and reached out to tug him by his shoulders.

Before Barker could follow, however, he spotted the old man among the roaring crowds, still and patient. Walking forward, he held his hands out and spoke. His voice, old and frail as it may have been, was heard quite clearly over the shouts of prisoners.

"It is time to do as promised," the old man declared as he placed himself before Benjamin.

Opening his mouth to reply, the convict was cut off by a terrifying wave of horrendous screams. Yes, shouts were heard all around them ever since the beginning of the uprising, but this was a different sound to the man. It was as if every last convict now stared into the face of their unknown fear, striking horror into their hearts and paralyzing them from motion. It was as if they stared into the face of Death itself.

It was then Benjamin realized that a vast line of sentries stood, firearms raised and ready for use. The crowded beach, froze, too frightened to continue running or launching their boats for departure.

"Benjamin, please," the old man whispered, his voice piercing their horrid screams. He said no more, waiting for the prisoner to deliver a bullet into his heart.

After deliberating, Benjamin furiously shook his head. "I cannot take your life, sir. Not after all that you have done for…my daughter." His beating heart throbbed at the mention of Johanna. _No_, he thought while blocking the image of her face from his mind. _Not now. He could not think of her now._

"End it, Benjamin, just as every last one of you had promised me. My time on this earth has reached its conclusion. I have fulfilled my purpose and paid my debt." The man studied the convicts he had supplied with weapons and supplies, a proud smile lifting his cheeks.

"No, sir," Benjamin refused, his eyes darting towards the few prisoners that had nobly returned to pushing the rowboats into the ocean as the water frothed beneath their boots and stung their eyes.

"I have helped you in hopes that I _can_ ensure your daughter had a future, in hopes that _you_ can have a future. Both of you, together. If my efforts were in vain, then by all means, let me live only to face unending torture under the hands of my previous captors."

Barker's head whipped towards the old man, his mind suddenly taking in the fate of the gentleman that he had not considered. It was true, if he did not kill the old man than he would face suffering beyond the imagination of anyone.

Swallowing, the con raised his gun and pointed it towards the old man's head. "If I do this," he began, "I know I shall live to regret it."

The man smiled in return. "Regret? Man, you should feel no regret in doing this merciful act. And when I die, I shall ensure that you are given a spot by my side, that is, if I rest in heaven. Now, do me this favor and I shall be eternally grateful. I'll even put a good word in with the Lord." He chuckled lowly, standing tall.

"Officers, take your aim," the leading guard shouted as he raised his arm in the air.

The old man grew fearful. "Benjamin, if it is to be done, then it must be now," he stated with widened eyes.

Prepared to do what he must, Benjamin readied his gun for firing. Convicts around him had begun to dash around others in desperate hopes of finding protection against the aiming guards.

"On my mark!" The commanding sentry ordered, anxious to slice the air with his hand and send a wall of bullets towards the chaotic prisoners.

"Benjamin, I wish for you to do only one thing after this," the elderly gentleman breathed as he closed his eyes.

"Yes, sir?" he replied, unsure of the man's request. He lowered his gun to gaze into the man's wrinkled face, pure with serenity.

"Tell your daughter that my name is David Gibbons."

Breath caught in his throat with building emotion, Barker managed to choke out, "Yes, sir."

Looking away from his target, Benjamin's finger jerked forward, pulling the trigger and sinking a single bullet into the man's chest. David Gibbons held a calm look on his face as he fell through the air, landing among the sand of the beach. Eyes still closed, he lay flat on his back, allowing the remainder of his life to seep from his body, peacefully stilling among the pandemonium around him.

Disgusted with the act, Benjamin observed the corpse, wishing to thrust the soul within the man once again and thank him for everything he had ever done. But, of course, this could never be.

Snapping from his state, the regretful con remembered the aiming guards and turned from the body of Mr. Gibbons. Rushing to the boats that had been pushed into the water, the running Benjamin sprang into the thin surface of the ocean, pushing forward as the lethal command filled the air.

"Fire!"

_Just live through the night…_

As a swarm of bullets flew through the air, killing nearly every person upon impact, Benjamin sank under the water's surface and began to swim towards the rowboats.

He had not told Johanna of his previous escape attempts, how he had learned to swim by flinging himself from the transporting ship so many years ago, how he nearly died in the attempt, how he nearly died when he was _rescued _by the sentries.

There was no use of thinking about that now. Flinging his arms forward, the man kicked with his legs, thrusting his body through the clear waters. It was not long before the familiar burning in his lungs began, leaving his chest to scream for the intake of cool air. The salty water stung Benjamin's eyes, entering his nose, choking him. But he continued to swim underwater, in the area of safety, the area of concealment. When the wooden bottoms of rowboats rested above Benjamin's head, he savagely hurled his arms up and down until his hand penetrated the water's surface and grasped the side of the rowboat. And as he attempted to pull himself from the water and aboard the safety of the boat, hands had already grasped his arm and began to haul him onboard.

All he could do was gulp down fresh air as his head shot above the water and his body was dragged into the boat. To his surprise, he was pulled aboard with men he had not seen before, save the few faces his mind seemed to recall, John, Jack, and Peter. The other men, he presumed, were in the adjacent boats, or dead on the shore.

"Jesus, Ben, I swear I though they shot yeh," John mumbled as his eyes ran over the gasping survivor. "Did yeh do as the old man said?"

After a few intakes of breath, Benjamin's desire for air was satisfied. "Yeah," he breathed while gazing back at the shore and pushing wet strands of hair from his face. His eyes ran over the island, falling upon dead men lying on the beach, the unmoving body of the old man, or David Gibbons, and the apprehended being forced to their feat as livid guards stared after the escapees. Some entered the water, aiming shots towards the rowboats and missing the target with dreadful inaccuracy, turning from the escapees, and shouting infuriated curses into the air.

"Who else 's…"Peter rasped, cleared his throat, and tried again, "Who else is dead?"

John frowned. "To me knowledge, Will was trampled after a knife entered his skull, Frank was shot, as was Charles and Andrew."

Sighing, Peter rubbed his eyes after learning that most of his mates on the voyage to the island had been killed. "Robert." The boy's voice quivered with sobs. "Robert was shot as well." The tone of his voice fell, solemn and grave. "Shot and killed."

John could have been feeling anything at that moment. He could have been in bitter sorrow over the loss of his comrade or helpless rage that would assist in slaughtering more obstacles in the way of his liberation, but whatever he felt, he did not show even a small bit on his face. With a blank expression, John let his eyes fall forward and turn towards the adjacent boats, assuring himself that he had not lost any other men that he had considered to be his friends.

Shuddering as if in terror Benjamin covered his face with his quivering hands and relentlessly accused himself of being nothing more than a cold hearted murderer.

_He had shot the old man! Shot him! And for what purpose, why could not the man have run with them?_

Utterly disgusted, Barker turned towards the side of the boat and attempted to swallow the bile that had risen in the back of his throat. The island was now a small dot in the horizon as the prisoners restlessly rowed away from their hellhole of memories.

The prisoners in each of the seven boats had tied each other together with their obtained rope to avoid the chance of boats drifting apart. Supplies were scarce among the hordes of men, of which, only one woman had managed to escape with them due to the fact that her husband had dragged her along as well as their infant son. Usually, the men would allow their gazes to linger on the woman had they not been absolutely worn out from their constant motions of their arms and sickened by the swaying waves that pulled their boats about.

The lone woman was enough to drive Benjamin mad with suppressed memories and the food that David Gibbons had supplied was enough to knot the convict's stomach until he could barely touch a morsel, let alone stomach it. It was accurate to say that Benjamin Barker was nearly insane with horrid guilt towards his brutal tactics and severe longing, not for a better lifestyle, but for the soft feel of his wife's hands upon his burning cheeks or the small frame of his daughter leaning against his aching body. He only yearned to hear their voices, speaking a comforting word or two. The horrors of the night robbed him of even a wink of sleep, leaving him wishing for the nightmares that used to plague him if it meant he could gaze into the eyes of his beloved for only one more time. No, he could only stare upward during the unending nights at the magnificent display of stars or fight to cling to the tethering ropes during the treacherous storms that drowned a good portion of their men.

When he openly gawked at the starry sky or ran his fingers on the surface of the water, he could sense that somewhere in that world, his daughter was living; miserable, perhaps, but alive nonetheless. And that was his key motivation when all he wished to do was close his eyes and attempt to dream of the broken family he had once been blessed with.

The men literally shriveled under the sun's blistering glare. Fresh water was a luxury, sending men into frenzies of hysteria as they gulped down handfuls of salt water and vomited after the sea water settled in their stomachs, burning their aching throats. This only increased their insanity, resulting in their agonizingly slow deaths. Once dead, their bodies would be somberly slipped from the boat and into a watery grave. Sharks would rush to the sight, devour the dead man, and lethally prowl the area for more flesh meant for its consumption. This meant that no men could cool his skin with a jump into the water for fear of being eaten alive by the ravenous stalker of the ocean.

After only a month, the rations had begun to run dangerously low. John pulled a map from a bag of supplies, once he head concluded searching frantically, and studied the land masses printed upon the paper in search of a port of some sort where they could dock their boats and smuggle goods for their advantage.

"We can only dock somewhere in Africa," John declared miserably as he pointed out the tip of the large continent. "Send the word down the line." Only moments after the information had been passed, shouts of protest arose, directed towards the foolhardy decision. John got to his feet, shuddering from the waves of pain that ripped through him, and yelled towards the other boats. "Listen up and listen well, damn you all!" he shouted with outstretched arms. "You 'ave a choice, all of yeh; either yeh die a slow death out 'ere with no supplies at all or yeh sneak into an old African town and swipe a few goods to sustain your worthless lives!"

"Africa is occupied by the damned British, yeh mindless son of a bitch! It is a death wish if we enter South Africa!" a prisoner from the Rocks harshly objected with clenched fists.

Spittle travelled down John's beard as he became more aggressive with his hand gestures. "EACH choice faces death, so make up your FUCKIN' minds and be quick about it!"

Silenced by the angered man, the fleeing cons conversed with others, unsure if they should simply push on and die if need be or face death at the hand of the British.

"We chose Africa," a subtle man announced, accepting the fact that death was inevitable with either decision.

The overall decision was to stop by the first African town and slip through the shadows, taking all that they could for their survival. But the chance they would make it was unlikely…and most of the men had agreed with the lethal terms, holding the knowledge that, yes, they were most definitely going to meet their end. The only uncertainty in the decision was if each man was to meet a torturous end or be gifted with a swift and painless death.

Using their stolen compass and the assistance of the stars from an educated con, the men were able to see the tip of South Africa after a week of perilous travels. To most men, they were certain that they now stared at the very land of their doom, sitting among the cloudy terrain.

"We will pull ashore at nightfall," one of the leading men announced, seemingly prepared, but beneath his control, he was terrified. "Sneak on land and take all, we'll have lookouts posted at the boats. Once you're arms are too full to carry another goddamn thing, rush back towards the boats. Half an hour, that's all you have, or we leave without you."

"This could very well be the last time we are together with breath in our bodies," a shaken prisoner remarked as he stared coldly at the land ahead.

Benjamin massaged his severely burnt face and shifted his arm from beneath his head as he lay back, abnormally composed, yet well aware that the dire terms of this raid were laden with terrifying peril. But for him, death would not be an option.

_Just live through the night…_

**Please leave a comment, I love reading each and every one of them!**


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19**

**The Atlantic Ocean**

Johanna lay huddled on the surface of her small cot inside the dank cabin. Her stomach burned with desire for food, but her stubborn mind constantly scolded her for this desire, reminding her of her refusal for food ever since she had left…_him. _

At the slightest thought of her father, a painful pang in her head signified she force the memories to the back of her mind or suffer the agonizing recollections that drained her last amount of stored willpower.

A soft shudder flew from her lips as she stood from the cot and scanned the outside world through the cabin's window, eyes aching from the light. It was all a mockery; the skies were too pure with the thick coat of blue, the water was too jovial as it swirled around before her eyes. She recoiled from such perfection and receded into the material of a chair in the corner of her room, sinking into the padding and staring at nothing in particular. Every once in a while, her eyes would dart towards the window only to shoot back to the surface of a barren wall, a crumpled sheet cast upon the bed.

The door to her cabin flew open, but the sudden motion seemed to not have fazed her. Still she sat with an empty gaze, and still, her mind had taken on the burden of blank nothingness rather than the lost faces of her companions. It was strange, though, how she had come to Australia with nothing, been reunited with a man that had become her everything, and had all joys robbed of her the moment her feet fell upon the wood of this damned boat. This seemed almost as mocking as the tranquility that rested outside of her lone window, seen by her anxious eyes but shunned by her resistance.

"Miss," Richard Taft began as he stepped within the small room, "I must request you venture to the decks for fresh air." Though he entered the cabin, he kept a considerable distance from the girl, as if he feared breaking her with his touch or a simple glance.

Sighing, Johanna replied, "Why, sir? Is it because you genuinely care about me or do you wish for your delivery to be in mint condition upon arrival?" She stared harshly into his conflicted face, almost smirking as he thoroughly searched him mind for the correct words to say.

After opening and closing his mouth for the third time, the officer exclaimed, "Of course I care for your well-being, Miss! I only want what I believe is best for you."

"I wish that were true, sir, for if it were, you would not have taken me from my father," her small voice nearly cried. In response to the tears that formed in her eyes, she raised a hand to her face and furiously wiped away the moisture.

At his breaking point, Taft leaned forward and roughly shoved his hand in front of her. "Take my hand, Miss, and come out to the decks. If you refuse, I will…" His features twisted with anger, but the threat could not be conjured within his mind. The loss for words was nothing more than a further nuisance to the officer as he jerked his hand in front of the girl once more, signifying that she take it.

With a breath of surrender, Johanna gave the man's hand a hard look, stood without his assistance, and made her way over to the empty doorway.

Her refusal may have been defeated but her defiance certainly had not. "Only for a few minutes," she demanded over her shoulder, piercing the sentry with a look of indifference before turning into the hallway and trotting to the forward stairwell.

Due to lack of movement, her knees seemed to scream in agony as she climbed each step. The young girl's eyes followed suit as the sunshine burned her sockets, causing her hands to slap towards her face and shield her vision from the blinding rays. Pain seared her skull, unbearable, torturous pain.

Stumbling forward, she blinked until her eyes seemed to grow accustomed to the light even when she wished to do nothing more than lock herself away in the unfeeling darkness of her cabin.

Soon, Johanna was observing the scenery around her, skimming over the despised faces of her captors to the scenic ocean around her. One thing had managed to capture her attention, however: the side of the boat.

Taft, who stood beside her, leaned forward to hear the low mumble of words as the girl spoke. "I wish to go over there." She indicated the side of the boat with a swift motion of her hand.

He cocked his head to the side and studied her desired destination. When he internally cleared her request, he retorted, "Very well. Do not stray, now."

Ignoring his demands, Johanna lightly walked to the side of the ship. Her eyes widened in awe as she took in the utter magnificence of the sea, the roaring waves, the sheer brilliance that had captivated her the first time she had laid eyes on it. Hands sliding on the wooden railings, she leaned forward and was delighted by a cool sea breeze that kissed her face.

But within the beauty of the sea, the Barker child could locate a hidden promise; The promise of release from her unending torment, the promise of unfathomable peace if she simply flung herself from the side of the ship and plummeted into the watery depths of the water.

To her horror, and slight pleasure, Johanna realized that her mind had just considered the option of suicide.

The rational part of her mind, though it had remained silenced since these thoughts had been provoked, now scolded her for such morbid thoughts. On the other hand, her soul seemed to implore that she take the option of ending her own life. It would not be difficult! One little jump and infinite peace would ensue for the duration of eternity. Even the rational part of her mind seemed to admit that the effects of Death did seem rather promising…

"_Swear to me!"_

Johanna stiffened, terrified of the voice that had just penetrated her mind. The voice…_his voice;_ their promise of survival, it all came rushing to her mind, banishing all thoughts of suicide from her mind, soul, and body.

Her hands loosened their grip on the boat, but she did not release her hold.

_Swear to fight, swear to live…_

She shook her head violently, refusing to promise the voice within her mind that she would step away from the side of the ship and continue the battle to live; a battle that she felt could never be won, no matter how ferociously she fought.

"_Swear to me," _the voice ordered again.

In one moment, her barriers against the memories were crushed and images had been brought forth. There were images of the acquaintances she had made and the faces she had loved, the father that she had not learned to adore but realized that she already had for all of the wasted years. And in that one moment, Johanna had stepped away from the ledge, whispering, "I swear, papa." With a flourish of the dress she had been provided with, Johanna fled from the spot and thrust herself into the protection of her cabin once more.

The room may have been dim, gloomy, and callous, but to her it was the only place where she held restraint. No matter what, Johanna Barker would strive to keep the promise she had made so many months ago to the one man that changed her life in every possible way.

**Cape Town, South Africa**

The sun had set long ago, disappearing behind the vast section of mountains that lay behind a small African town. Now the moon was lit brilliantly over the town, a peaceful decoration above the streets that would soon drip with blood.

As the men pulled ashore in their rowboats, few words were spoken.

"Where do yeh suppose we are?" Peter whispered to John while they jumped from the rowboats to the sandy shores of the mysterious settlement.

"I don't 'ave the slightest clue," the bearded con admitted as he straightened his swaying body. "It 'as to be Africa." He looked upward at the darkened terrain, shrugging his shoulders with a baffled grimace.

Benjamin Barker only had eyes for the darkened town that lay ahead. His hand held nothing more than the same gun he had used for his previous escape, though it had not been fired for moral purposes.

He furrowed his brow at the sudden memory of David Gibbons and the bleeding corpse he had left for the guards to whatever they would with it.

"Alright lads," a man instructed while bracing himself to a running position, "all those too weak are to stay behind."

A good portion of the men sat within the rowboats, gazing at their mates as if they were ashamed of their destabilized state.

"When I give the command, every able-bodied son of a bitch better be runnin' to that town. Take what yeh can."

The line of vigorous convicts drew breaths of preparation before leaning forwards.

"Run!" the male instructed in a hiss of air. Those who did not hear the command soon began the pursuit after their fellow mates began to dash towards the town.

Their boots were difficult to lift as the men bounded through the sand. A wind blew, sending grains into Benjamin's eyes, irritating them.

The silhouetted buildings of the town grew larger as the men ran forward, dashing in forsaken streets, tearing through all they could find, wincing when their shoes gave forth an echoing clatter that rolled through the air.

There was not much that the men could find. An occasional soiled rope cast aside, an abandoned cart filled with rotten cabbages, buckets of filthy water.

Their frantic prowl would be suddenly interrupted when a British sentry came strolling leisurely down the streets, unaware of the escapees that hid amongst the shadows. There they would wait, praying to God that the guard would continue walking past their chosen spots of concealment.

The passing of a native citizen, though, was far more frequent.

When the opportunity was given, Jack snatched a native from the streets and dragged him into an alley crowded with soundless convicts. Using his bear hands, Jack quieted the shrieking native with a fist to his face. The man's head flew backwards, hitting the alley wall, and ultimately silencing him as Jack tore through the man's belongings. There was nothing more than a slice of bread and a water canteen. Jack handed the stolen items to the nearest man by his side and gave his victim a forceful push, scowling as the native fell on his back upon the stone street.

Frustrated, the convicts turned from their prey, nearly certain that the blows to his head had rendered him unconscious. They were wrong.

Shouting in his native tongue, the victim got to his feet, after much difficulty, and ran into the street, braying wildly while thrusting his fists in the air.

"Someone stop 'im," Harry whispered fearfully, nearly certain that the man would draw attention to himself and guards would swarm the area within the minute.

John stepped forward, offering the water canteen to the man in an attempt to appease him. The native simply slapped away the offering, pointing at John with his finger and shouting his clear displeasure.

It was then that Dill brought his gun forward and took aim at the man, the determination in his eyes glinting in the moonlight.

"No, wait!" John shouted as he reached his hand forward to knock the weapon from his companion's hands.

The order came too late.

The bullet let out a deep, harsh sound the moment the trigger had been pulled. It sounded throughout the entire landscape, a booming sound among the still of the sleeping town.

Blood oozed from a hole in the man's neck, dripping from his wound like the steady flow of water poured from a pitcher. The native straightened as if he were shocked to feel a sudden pain sear his neck. He looked at Dill incredulously, silently wondering what the prisoner had done to him. Falling onto his side, the man's body crumpled, slowly stilling as death seeped through him.

A con rushed forward, grasping Dill roughly by the collar. "Don't yeh see wot yeh just did?!" he shouted, uncaring of whoever heard him now. "You just alarmed the guards!"

"Damn it, get off," Dill yelped as he fought against the prisoner.

The growing sound of men's voices could be heard at the far end of the street. Benjamin squinted in order to gain a better view of who was at the end of the road. Unfortunately, he was not shocked to see a lethal group of English sentries pointing at the ragged group with gloved fingers. The convicts returned the sentries stares like children caught in the act of doing something forbidden. In actuality, it was pure terror that paralyzed them; terror that disabled their minds, abolishing their ability to think for themselves.

When the guards began to charge towards the frozen group, though, the men finally came to their senses.

"Shit! Oh, shit!" Harry yelped as he aggressively turned on his heel and darted in the opposite direction of the oncoming officers.

After gawking at the approaching men with an incomprehensible expression on his face, Benjamin whirled around and ran alongside John and Peter as they made a desperate dash for the rowboats pulled ashore. Buildings flew passed them as the convicts fled, too engrossed in their flight to gaze backwards and see if they were still being pursued. But the clattering sounds of boot hitting stone seemed to assure them that they were indeed being followed; even more so when a thundering bullet sailed through the air, impaling one of the men.

The sound of the gunshot seemed to shoot not only bullets into the man, but fear as well. Running at an even faster pace, the convicts pushed past all blocking obstacles, praying that they would return to the boats before the hands of Death clutched at them. Thinking of death upon arrival at the town had been common as if it were not to happen, but now, it was a petrifying reality.

Finally, after what seemed to be hours of heart-pounding terror, the shore of the African town lay ahead, offering protection to the fleeing men as they drew nearer. Sand sank beneath their feet the moment it made contact; shooting in the air each time a bullet sank into the earth.

Once the rowboats lay before them, the men froze, unsure of where the ill mates had gone.

"Where are the others?" John shouted the question into the air, frantically searching the boats for the weaker cons they had left behind.

Peter grasped John's sleeve, tugging harshly with widened eyes. He pointed to the inside of the boat while stepping forward apprehensively.

To their dawning horror, inside of the boats lay all of the convicts they had instructed to stay behind. Their bodies were sprawled on top of each other, piled in heaps of torn flesh from stab wounds and heavy clubs. Their faces held expressions of shock, some even held their weapons forward as if they had made an effort to fight off their assailants, but even after doing so, had failed. Blood pooled within the boats, dampening the still faces of the dead like black ink in the moonlight.

The guards had already known they were there and awaited their opportunity to slaughter the helpless convicts that had remained.

"They killed them!" a voice moaned in trepidation, causing panic amongst the crowd of surviving convicts. The pandemonium erupted as British guards swarmed the beaches, firearms raised. They were surrounded, completely outnumbered and obviously defeated.

"Don't move an inch or we'll blow your goddamn 'eads in!" The order came from the lips of an unarmed guard, stepping forward with a twisted grin on his face. "Yeh men are convicts, ain't yeh? Hah! We've 'eard bout yeh from Botany Bay. The only escape group that survived…well _almost _survived."

Ben swallowed the lump that had formed within his throat. His gaze slowly ran over the faces of their captors, the raised arms of the apprehended, the still carcasses of their dead. There had to an opening to run…He would not die here, not like this.

"All of yeh are goin' to our solitary cells for the rest of yeh lives for this outrage!"

All at once, the captured moaned their defeat. Some even sobbed, including the hardened prisoners from the Rocks, allowing cries to roll through them in waves of failure.

John nudged Benjamin with his elbow, leaned in, and whispered, "We're makin' a run for it on my signal. Word's been spread, flee to the mountains." The low pitch of his voice was shockingly steady after all that had occurred, yet Benjamin could hear the slight tremor in the man's voice behind it all.

It would be impossible for the men to use the rowboats for their flight, for if they turned their backs to jump within the boats filled with the dead, they would simply face the remaining guards that had enclosed them in. Even if they managed to make it into their rowboats, they were closer targets for the guards than they had been in Botany Bay. The decision to run forward had a better chance, but then again, their luck had failed miserably that night anyway.

Nodding his head in agreement to John's plan, Barker clenched his fists and turned towards the raised terrain of the mountains. The mountain's peek held similarity to a lion's head, a very ominous sight for the men that prepared to fight. Now, Ben could do nothing but simply wait; wait for John's signal, wait to run for his very life, wait to live through the night.

"GO!"

And with that, the surrounded men lunged themselves towards their captors, battling against raised guns, falling as they received bullets in their chest in return, screeching as knives penetrated their skulls. Death enveloped the beach, covering the agonized with its assuring embrace. Sadly enough, the prisoners ran, pushing past their mates as the fallen reached out towards the standing. All the fleeing men could offer was a backward glance towards their dying companions, an apologetic shadow darkening their faces as they left them to their doom.

Benjamin ran in line with the cons that had managed to plunge their way through the armed sentries. They all ran towards the town once more, but many did not make it to the stone streets. As they fled, a section of belligerent sentries scurried after them, pausing only to take aim and fire bullets into their enemy's backs. Few men returned fire, but the decision proved foolhardy as oncoming bullets sunk into their faces, knocking them off of their feat and sending them backwards, smashing to the floor. The wiser of the convicts did not even cast a glace behind them as they dashed through the streets of the town.

Occupants of the area had exited their homes to observe the reason for the ruckus, some shouting in approval as they saw the rebelling group fighting against the soldiers. A small boy clapped his dark hands together in pleasure, but ducked inside as the group of convicts rushed by his home.

Blood ran through Benjamin's veins, pumping in his ears. The sound was louder than the shouts of the wounded or the blast of the men's rifles. It was not until he saw a man by his side crumple to the ground did he realize that the piercing hum in his ears was not only the sound of blood coursing through his body, but the actual sound of his terror.

Buildings fell away and the terrain steepened. Trees hung low in all directions, insects buzzed in the air, and earth covered every inch of ground. They had made it to the mountain.

The men were suddenly relieved, but only for a single, sacred moment. The pursuing guards were close behind and the infuriated looks on their faces screamed the fact that they were not prepared to lose a single man to the twisting pathways of the mountains.

Ground sloped sharply with each forced step, exhausting every man in determined pursuit or in vain flight.

Soon the cluster of convicts diverged, sending men in scattering directions. Without breaking his rhythmic dash, Benjamin swerved to the side, ducking into a section of thick bushes. Frenetically, he shoved the shrubs away from his advancing figure. To his side, he could faintly make out John pulling Peter along, pushing the shrubs aside just as he did. The area was a perfect concealment, but not even the comfort of their location could ease the tension on his shoulder as he ran in the opposite direction of dying shouts and resounding shots. A voice in his mind pointed out that it was likely most of the others had been killed, slain in cold blood, and left to bleed alone.

When the cries of torment and shrieks from the guards seemed to fade away, Benjamin ceased his stride and paused for air. Gushes of wind blew, yet his skin remained heated, dripping with beads of sweat. John stopped by his side, as did the boy, all gasping for revitalizing breaths.

"Right, let's push on," John began as his breaths evened. Benjamin held him back by thrusting an arm in front of his mate.

"What is your plan?" he asked quietly.

Anxious, John ran trembling hands through his head of hair. "Oh, Christ, I don't know!" It was clear that the man was thinking on the matter, yet control seemed to be out of his reach. "We'll push forward. Go through this bloody country and the next until we're on English soil." He cast a worried glance behind him and muttered, "Though I truly despise the bloody English, especially after tonight."

Peter looked between the two men, attempting control in front of his companions. Wordlessly, he agreed with the men, ready to run from the guards that were most likely not far behind.

Benjamin shook his head as John insisted that they continue forward. "I can't come with you."

"Damn it, Barker, now is not the time for this!"

"Are you aware how long it will take us to reach London by traveling upland?" the con replied in a controlled tone, "Perhaps two years, give or take. No, I must go to London by sea, where there aren't any obstacles to slow me down or-"

"Except roaring storms that could kill yeh if the guards don't shoot yeh first," John interrupted, losing his patience.

"Go upland, John, but I will be traveling by sea." Benjamin sent John a challenging glance, tenacious even under the pressures of his companions.

"You are a fool, Benjamin Barker to simply think you'll survive this! Come with us!" Fearing for his mate's life, John gently tugged Ben's shoulder.

Shrugging away, Barker coldly spoke. "I will lose my chance to travel by sea if I go upland. Put yourself in my position."

"Ben…" Peter's voice fell away, dissolving into silence.

"My daughter is probably near London, by now, destined to live with the very man who imprisoned me. She fears him and I have not the slightest clue why. All I know is that I had to make her swear to me that she would fight to live. Fight to _live_!" Benjamin's voice rose with each word as if he were begging John to see things from his perspective. "I cannot waste time while Johanna remains locked away with Turpin...the sooner I get to her; the sooner I can free her. I do not know how long she can keep her word without..." The very thought of his daughter failed to produce a possible fate she may undergo. An image of his Johanna broken and bleeding crossed his mind, forcing him to speak once more, his words even more desperate. "I must go."

Stepping towards the man, John placed both hands on his friend's shoulder. "Lord only knows when we'll meet again, Benjamin. Please do this one thing for me." He allowed a small smile to spread onto his lips. "Find my wife and son if I, or Peter, do not return to London within two years or so. Tell my beloved Ruth and Edward that I love 'em even in death. That's all I ask."

"If you can," Benjamin replied hoarsely, "find Johanna and tell her the same…" His eyes fell forward. "Tell Lucy as well."

"Course," John replied grimly, softening the moment with a gentle pat on the man's shoulder. "Take care, Ben," he mumbled before turning around and sprinting forward.

Peter shot Benjamin a fleeting look and whispered, "I don't got any family so I suppose I can't ask anything of yeh…" He offered a wry grin and said, "I can only ask that you tell Johanna I loved _her_, not just her hair." Without another word, the boy nodded his goodbyes and turned to follow John. The pair disappeared within the bushes, leaving Benjamin utterly alone and slightly depressed after the parting of the two. Perhaps he _had _considered them his _friends_…

_Well, now what was he to do?_

After studying his surroundings, Barker decided to run back and stealth his way around the town. Surely the men were dead and the chaos had subdued! Nevertheless, Benjamin turned from the spot with a heavy heart and made his way to the town. Walking back was a much easier task, considering that the floor had begun to even out, but the thought of returning to the spot where British stalked the area so freely was enough to make Ben nauseous with unease.

As the town approached between the thick bushes, a surge of hope lightened Benjamin's dark soul. A dock had to rest somewhere nearby…A sudden thought entered his mind. He would travel in an eastward direction until he reached another town, another dock. There he would slip into the water within the safety of yet another stolen rowboat and make his way to London. Even he had to admit, the idea seemed somewhat inconceivable, but he would not waste time pondering on the matter.

His plan began to take on a more optimistic feel; it really had that is until the cool metal of a soldier's gun rested against Barker's back between his shoulder blades. The convict inhaled suddenly, body frozen.

"Move and I'll kill yeh," the owner of the weapon commanded, his voice booming with authority. "Don't think for a single second that I wouldn't."

Thoughts raced through Benjamin's mind. In a state of panic, the prisoner rushed forward and away from the barrel of the firearm. Assurances of freedom lifted his legs as he ran without halting once.

A sharp twinge of pain pierced his arm. Shocked, Benjamin gazed down at his forearm and stared at blood that dripped from a flesh wound he had somehow acquired. The pain suddenly disabled him, causing his knees to buckle. The officer's hand furiously shoved Benjamin downward to the floor.

"I told yeh not to run. Look at that, I had to stab yeh to prove it!"

Realization coursed through the man. He was going to die if he did not escape. Death could not be an option! It could not!

Desperate, Ben writhed under the hand of his captor. Instead of receiving an opportunity to flee, he received a sharp kick to his gut, forcing all air from his stomach.

"Did yeh catch one?" a second voice questioned eagerly.

"Yeah, now bring 'im to his feet and 'elp me take 'im to the Head Officer."

_No._

While Benjamin was forced to his feet, he struggled like a trapped animal against the men, shrugging off their blows. But when a guard struck him on the head of his skull, the world dimmed suddenly, shattering his strength.

For the first time, death seemed to be an inevitable option to Benjamin Barker.


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20**

**Cape Town, South Africa**

As Benjamin was dragged by his forearms to the Head Officer's cabin, faces of his fallen comrades amongst the dead piles of bodies stood out as if their faces were lit up only for his viewing.

Jack lay prone in the streets, unmoving. Small holes had dug into the back of his shoulders and skull, obviously the bullets that had paralyzed him to begin with, thus resulting in the fatal shots that claimed his life.

Memories of the con began their impulsive invade within Benjamin's mind. From the hellish tortures of the Rocks to the fateful night of their hopeless raid, he was the man always thrust into the midst of the action, a mask of rage distorting his features. But now, that deformed face of unfathomable fury was hidden by the sharp stone floors, making observation impossible. Yet Barker felt repulsively gladdened at this; he did not wish to study the face of the dead con. He preferred to keep the memory of Jack as the man he had been before the gunshots had beckoned his crimson blood to adorn the ground.

Benjamin huffed in pain as his captor's elbow rammed him roughly in the chest for his slowed movements, but not even the ache in his chest could deter the glances he cast around the still city, the silence unfitting after the hours of consistent bloodshed.

Many men he had spoken to or simply cast a fleeting look were now slaughtered in the paved roads or wild mountains, without the chance to share parting words with their friends, their family. Dread washed over Benjamin, pointing out that he would be yet another addition to the heap of bodies, ignored when their cries begged for mercy, killed when all they wished was a glimpse of their cherished ones again, even if it be for a split second. But this would not be, for he was just another nameless convict to the soldiers, a nonentity bound for the gallows or secluded for the rest of his days. The thought of spending his life within the dull confinements of a single cell held more terror than the image of his lifeless carcass swinging from a wooden plank.

"This way," the guard on Benjamin's left spat with a sharp blow to his bleeding arm. Gasping, the convict pressed his fingers to the wound and applied pressure in hopes of stopping the sluggish bleeding. The thick liquid was a dark contrast against his pale, moonlit skin.

The Head Officer of the rank was situated within a spotless cabin, decorated with images of soldiers standing triumphantly over their fallen enemy's on a battlefield. Benjamin could feel a strong, perpetual connection between the frightened, oily faces of slaughtered men in the picture; he was to die at the hands of his vicious enemy as well, but perhaps a more agonizing fate was in store than the quick pierce of steel during a raging battle. Yes, the British were a tad bit more _sadistic_ with their captives.

Other survivors had been shoved within the cabin, lined up, shivering as if the weather outside was a bitter cold rather than moist warmth. Most kept their gazes averted to the floor, worried that a crooked stare may result with a lethal shot to his head or a quivering whimper would earn him a jagged blade in his neck. Harry stood among the apprehended, staring blankly into space; His eyes told of nothing, and yet, it was beyond clear that he had already accepted his true fate, whatever it was to be. At least he, as well as many others, was certain of the inevitable death they all faced at the end of their unknown penalties.

The guards holding Benjamin released him with a thrust of their arms, pushing him forward. "This is one of yeh?" the sentry who had sliced Ben's arm open inquired with a point of his fingers towards the immobile convict.

Eyes roaming the line of his fellow captives, Benjamin silently pleaded that the men retort with silence and give him the opportunity to seek freedom. James saw the desperation in the man's glance and shot his eyes towards the officer's face. Softly, he answered, "Yes, sir, he is one of us."

James's betrayal left Barker's mind reeling with thoughts of disparagement towards the convict. The bastard deserved to cough up blood for that and Benjamin was all too eager to see that action come into play. Jaw clenched, he swiveled his head towards the portraits and observed them with distracting care to keep from losing control over his wild array of deadly sentiments.

The apparent Head Officer entered the room from an opposite doorway, making no effort to hide the contorted sneer that rested upon his lips. "I must say, I truly enjoyed the entertainment you cons have given us," he droned, tracing his fingertips lightly over the still faces of dying men hung on his wall. "A noble effort," the man credited, "but a failed attempt."

With a jovial bounce in his step, the officer stood to face a shivering prisoner. "Punishments must be given, you know. Terrible punishments…"

"Fuck your punishments," a noble convict roared, falling instantly silent as he received a bullet in his temple, drenching those next to him with gore from his injury. The wooden floor nearly gave way under his tumbling body whilst the main sentry pocketed his pistol nonchalantly after lightly blowing a puff of breath at the barrel's smoking end. The gray smoke danced within the air before dissolving into it as if they were one.

Benjamin lifted his fingers to the cheek that had been lightly sprayed with the dead man's blood, smearing onto his arm as he wiped the liquid with his wrist. The metallic smell never failed to disgust him but the deep, ruby shade locked his eyes within its sinister gleam.

The Officer continued, cheery, as if nothing had occurred. "Seeing that I am not entirely without a heart and you _are_ the men that have either successfully surrendered," apparently, he recollected the helpless, weakened cons he had ordered to be killed, "or you have been overpowered and brought against your will," his light eyes twinkled with mirth as his gaze seemed to brush over Benjamin, "I have decided that you are all to live."

Some sighed with relief, faces brightened with small smiles of gratitude. On the other hand, most men knew better than to believe the officer's all too promising words. If it was not the first lesson learned, it was soon the most predominant: never trust the word of an officer.

"You will be allowed to live" the sentry paused, delighted by the false sense of security he had created, "…within the solitary cells until you are dead."

Those who had so recently been lifted with hope now came crashing into dark reality, moaning their dread, sobbing their horrendous torment. The rest, however, remained subdued, seemingly lost in their final thoughts of liberation. They had been so close…and now _this._

The officer turned away from his victims, mindlessly toying with a letter opener, caressing the sharp point. "Take them to the cells," was the order he cast over his shoulder as he receded into the previous room, not even slightly dismayed by the lives he had just ruined.

The men were roughly seized by their arms, Ben stifled a cry of anguish as this occurred, and pushed outside. Gazes lingered on the darkened landscape, relishing the sight of the outside world while they still held the chance. It was a morbid sight; the eyes of a defeated convict taking in all that was around him, his stares pensively observing the terrain, the soft wind caressing his face for what would be the last time. The sound of their sighs was lost in the stir of wind.

Images of the recently shot convict entered the minds of those who considered the option to run. The utter defeat within the men was enough to deter the option anyway. An occasional body of a stilled con would block their path, a more _convincing _reminder for the living to stay as they were.

The most convincing reminder, though, was the gruesome sight of Dill's rotting corpse. Many of the men had been shot, the piercing bullets ripping over their thick layers of flesh, but Dill seemed to have been bombarded with a wall of various weapons. A knife wound in his lower stomach, multiple shots to his head, and other sickening marks around his twisted body. It was only when Benjamin leaned closer that he realized the man's head was severed from his body. It was true that he had not cared for the man, especially after the incident with the slaying of the native, but even the gory sight of the deplorable dead man made Ben's stomach churn with nausea. A small bit of reason within Benjamin's mind stated that the wounds may not have been given by guards alone…maybe prisoners had been obliged to give their own series of blows to the fallen man that had assisted in their capture, their murder. The pool of blood that had accumulated around the carcass flowed between the headless body and the prisoner's boots, reaching towards them like the swift hands of Death.

Harry sighed deeply and whispered to Barker, "I thought we could get away from it all…" His voice was so miserable, so lost; it took nearly every ounce of Benjamin's self-control to keep from succumbing to the reality that he simply did not believe to be true. "I'll never be going home, will I?"

To this, Benjamin chose the response of absolute silence. Words could not even begin to be summoned and he was quite sure that he did not wish to even make the effort to do so.

"…Our Little Lady," Harry chuckled at the mention of Benjamin's daughter, a hoarse and dejected sound. "Your girl really brought light to our prison. Yeh ought to be proud, Ben. She truly was a little lady." His mouth snapped shut. That was all the man said, all the man _could_ say. The same melancholy stare returned to Harry's usually twinkling eyes and fell as his eyes ran over the ground as if searching for a written word of consolation amongst the stone.

Still, Barker's lips remained tight; a thin line of resistance. He felt the urge to shout, demand that neither Harry nor anyone else could ever speak of his daughter whilst in his presence, but what would be the point to that? This was the last time he would ever converse with anyone until his dying day, or at least that was what the main sentry had ensured them. Was this pain to profound to be accepted as true? The answer was like his ability to articulate: silence.

Bodies sagging, the prisoners were placed in front of another building, slightly smaller than the Head Officer's main cabin. It was what every prison would be expected to appear like: no windows, a sentry located within every stare a man would shoot around him. The surrounding guards hauled their captives into the gloomy building. Inside, only the faint light could allow the convicts to see where they were headed. What lay before them was a labyrinth of stairs, spiraling downward as if to Hell itself. The bottom floor was unseen, black as the night that lay outside of their new prison.

Before the men were permitted to descend down the stairs, they were jerked aside and held at gunpoint as a section of guards confronted the cons and thrust his hands in their pockets, digging for weapons. Benjamin was nearly certain that the gun he had refused to release still remained within his pocket, and yet, when a sentry pulled him forward by his collar and searched through every fold within his shirt, there was nothing. Confused, all Benjamin Barker could do to possibly explain the mysterious disappearance was except the notion that he let the weapon slip from his grip when he was first assaulted.

After the search proved fruitless, Benjamin was cast aside and ordered to take off his boots, as were the other men. They did so, unwillingly, and handed their shoes to the sentries, who in return, tossed them into the corner of their prison. All weapons had been discarded and even pocketed by the sentries, but now, it was time to descend down the darkened stairs, the stairs that led to each man's personal nightmare.

Each step brought yet another violent tremor of anxiety through Benjamin. The reality of the situation seemed too real to actually be occurring. Perhaps if he flung himself down the stairway, he would awaken to see his Johanna smiling at him as golden locks fell into her innocent eyes. Maybe if he smashed his _thick, foolhardy _skull into the _stone _walls, he just might tumble from his cot only to realize that it was all simply a nightmare. The terrible ship that transported him to the traumatizing island, the Rocks, the solitary confinement, the animalistic prisoners, his parting with Johanna; it was all a nightmare! The men he had befriended were alive, the daughter he adored was with him, and the wife he cherished was nestled in his arms…

But in one moment, one _nauseating _moment, he realized that none of it was a sickening dream, but a sickening _reality_. And that single moment came once the door to his secluded cell slammed behind him.

Standing in the middle of the damp, pitch-black cell, Benjamin gazed about him, determining if the walls were truly surrounding him, if he indeed had just been secluded from the world in a prison once more. He stumbled blindly to the grimy walls, running his hands over the slick surface as his mind processed the chances of the whole scenario being nothing more than a tormenting dream.

No, the stone was too cold, his arm screamed with agony, his head throbbed; the walls were slowly closing in around him. Grasping his head in his hands, Benjamin began to relive the horrors he had experienced for all of those years as if he had never left them. A low groan flourished within his heaving chest as he knelt to the floor, crippled by the paralyzing agony that shocked every inch of his body, making his nerves spasm.

"This is not happening…" his voice trembled as did his sore body, "It isn't!"

Somewhere in the silence, amongst the still of the unbounded night, a voice called out to him, speaking as if they had been acquainted in previous times, as if he had known the owner of the voice for nearly all of his life.

"_Oh, it is true," _the sinister voice murmured, dripping with indifference. _"You are here and here is where you shall die."_

Head shooting up, Benjamin's eyes flew around the room. Fear gripped at his heart towards the man that had spoken; terror that had been imbedded within his distressed mind long ago…

"Who are you?" The thick air held the hisses of breath that coursed down his throat and exhaled in a sharp huff as pain engulfed his mind.

"_The question would be, Benjamin, is how could a father, such as you, lie to his one and only child?"_

Gnashing his teeth, the con replied, "I did not lie to her!" Oh, how he wished to squeeze the neck of the speaker until he was blue from blasted asphyxia!

If the owner of the mocking voice held a body, Benjamin imagined the owner rolling his eyes as he droned on, "_Of course you didn't, Barker. You simply told your beloved daughter that you would come home again…Well," _a thoughtful pause, "_it would seem that every word you spoke to Johanna was a lie."_

Unexplained questions pounded his head, made his stone heart thud with sharp force. "How do you know her name?" he furiously queried, prepared to strangle the life out of the man, whether he be a burly con or a being of supreme horror. The fire of fury that burned within him was suddenly doused with panic. He spoke again, unable to bite back the fright in his tone. "How do you know _my _name?"

"_I know so much about you, Benjamin. You could even consider me a part of you…"_ The voice trailed off, silently indicating that somehow the mysterious being was an actual part of Barker, just as he claimed to be.

Leaning upon a wooden slab used for sleep, Benjamin placed the palms of his hands over his eyes. The action was almost unnoticeable, considering that the room was as dark as the ominous pitch of the unknown voice. "Stop speaking to me." The command was weak, the demand of a weary and broken convict.

The responding silence granted Barker the peace he had hoped to gain in the midst of his hell, but it could only last so long.

"_I do not take orders from a failure such as you."_

Furiously, Benjamin stood to his feet. "I SAID STOP SPEAKING, GOD DAMNIT!" he thundered into the empty space with clenched fists.

The voice dissolved into the night, words still ringing in his blurred memory. Amongst the still, men from distant cells could be heard begging, screaming for mercy from a force that Benjamin had yet to understand.

Grasping his swollen arm, he staggered forward, hands flailing about in the never-ending darkness. There was a seemingly strong connection between the black that surrounded him and the blackness that was his soul.

He did not know when a day had passed, for not even a crack of light was shown within the cell, making time nothing more than a meaningless expression. The guards brought food occasionally, meager morsels that were enough to get a man an hour through the day before the sharp sting of hunger prodded his stomach until the lower half of his body was crumpled in knots of famished torment. Benjamin did not mind this; he barely had eaten to begin with. His way of eating was similar to the guards' chosen diets for their prisoners: enough to sustain their wretched lives, nothing more.

Days may have gone by in this fashion, maybe weeks, perhaps even months. Barker made no effort to consider the fact.

His mind was elsewhere.

During the lonely hours, the con felt nothing other than the familiar throb of misery in his chest as his eyes took on the sights of his family, dying as he stood before them and helplessly reached out into the darkness. But when he stepped towards the sobbing image of Lucy or the huddled heap of Johanna, a wave of pain washed over him as he crumpled to the floor, unable to comprehend who was screaming within the uncertainty of his doubt until he pressed his fingers to his vibrating throat, realizing that he was the one shouting.

On a particular day or night, Benjamin did not know for certain, the mocking voice had returned to him and spoke of nothing but his failures, his dying loved ones, and the revulsion within his spirit that was once sacred innocence.

"_Look around you," it whispered calmly. "You swore to Johanna you would return to London. Gaze around and tell me if you kept your word."_

And though Benjamin Barker wished to do nothing other than claw at his ears until he was deaf, his instinctive eyes did shoot about the cell, unable to fully observe his surroundings, yet well aware of where he was. He did not articulate a response, though. The hopelessness of his situation seemed to have stripped his ability to speak after his raw throat demanded the insufferable voice be still. That particular comment, however, seemed to have shattered Benjamin until only skin could contain the despair that had settled within his destabilized body.

"_I will answer for you, then: No, you did not keep your word. Tell me, Benjamin, though I know the answer, why don't you confess all of the lies you have told your girl." _A sadistic smile could be heard within the pitch.

"Lies," Barker repeated miserably, "I have not…I did not mean to-"

"_Oh, spare me the excuses," _the voice snorted_. "It would seem we have unveiled one of your lies: the promise to return home. Let me assist you in uncovering the rest…" _without hesitation, it continued, "_In Botany Bay,_ _you claimed to have spent three months in solitary confinement. Now, tell me how long were you truly in that cell."_

Shaking his head, Benjamin vigorously began to pace from one wall to the next, tormented by the unknown source of his suffering.

"_Answer the question!"_

Benjamin fought against the power of the presence and lost. "Three _years_," his tone cracked.

"_Good, Benjamin," it cooed smugly. "You also spoke of Jack being the only man from the Rocks that you resided with. Now speak the truth."_

Willingly, Benjamin muttered, "There were plenty of men from the Rocks in our barracks. I did not want Johanna to know; too many of them knew her..."

"_Sickening, is it not? To live with the very same men that held you down and robbed you of all of your innocence."_

Barker paused as he slid his hands on the wall of his cell, considering the option of slamming his head into the stone and cracking his skull open.

"_What I find truly sickening, though, is how you pried your angelic daughter's hands from your shirt after she implored you to keep her with you, to love her with all that you had. And now, you will never see those hands again, Barker, because you couldn't muster the odium needed to kill; the stamina to push away your infuriating conscious."_

A surge of powerful emotions engulfed the convict in their fiery embrace as the singeing sting of true abhorrence clutched at him, refusing to release his soul. It was then that Benjamin Barker truly understood the reality of where he was, and it was now that he began to feel the bottomless rage that he had managed to trample for all of those years. Now he lived with that rage, now, he was dependent on it.

"_Have you no lust for retribution? Are you not disgusted knowing that your daughter has been sent back to London, to the open arms of her tormenter…your wife's tormentor?!"_

"No," Benjamin denied the voice, "they are fine! My family is fine!" His words rose with desperation.

"_You know they are not," the obscured man spoke softly. "You feel their pain as it is your own…and I do as well. Your family is suffering and you are miles away from them as they struggle to survive, that is if they even still live."_

The prisoner's fists slammed against the wall, pummeling stone until he heard his knuckles pop and felt the warm trickle of blood pour down his arms, its thick liquid streaking his pale skin. It was not enough. Flinging himself about like a lunatic, Benjamin reeled himself towards the door and flung his entire body against the wood, shrieking, "NO!" as the door shuddered under the pressure. He stalked the room after his body had rammed into the door for the fifth time and ruthlessly scavenged the cell until he was clawing at the slab of wood, splintering the surface as it dug into his skin. The sharp pieces claimed their homes within his flesh, a series of sharp sensations traveling up his arm all the way to his torso. Still, not enough…His head began to grow dim after he slammed his face to the stone, attempting to reach eternal sleep rather than succumb to the truth.

The stone was cold against Benjamin's forehead as he slumped forward.

"_You are dying," the voice pointed out, a melancholy sigh added at the conclusion of his observation._

The statement, Benjamin admitted, was not far from the truth. He was slowly dying an agonizing death of torturous seclusion, just as he had for three years. The perplexing part that made Barker shiver with alarm was the ignorance of not grasping how the voice acquired such knowledge. "Who are you?" he finally tried again.

"_I am you, Barker, or at least what's left of you. I came to be the moment you were taken from your loved ones. I have supplied you with as much hate as I could possibly give, fueled by one motive and one alone."_

Chillingly staring into the darkness, Ben questioned, "And what is that motive?"

"_Revenge," he replied coldly. _

Even the warm blood travelling down the stilled convict's wounds seemed to cool at the word. Such a small phrase and it held enough power to cut his breaths short, to turn his blood to ice water.

"_But Benjamin Barker cannot fulfill that revenge._ I, _on the other hand, am more than capable. So_ I_ will be the one to have vengeance on those who have wronged you and_ I_ will succeed. Rest assured with that knowledge. Yet, in order for this to be done, you, Benjamin, must be killed, for your innocence would surely be your downfall."_

With a breath of acceptance, Benjamin closed his eyes, producing another layer of darkness.Death was not frightening in the least. He had stared death in the face, frowned at its traumatizing effects, and continued to fight the continuous, bloody battle that the human race called Life. Benjamin knew all too well that not every battle could be won, as did his daughter. Now, only one inquiry remained.

"What of my family?" The lone question echoed throughout the room.

"_What was once Benjamin Barker's is now mine. It is my loyal oath to do what I can for _our_ family but not even they can deter me from my task. Accept this as well as your fate."_

It was strange how the morbid news did not irk Benjamin in the very least. What more did he have left? He could not continue on, not after what he had been through, what the world had so cruelly done to him and his family. All because of the worst offense a man could have ever committed: Foolishness. And it was foolishness that Barker realized was a crime punishable by death. He deserved to die, everyone did. "Very well," he sighed, placing a fist to his bowed head.

"_I will allow you to draw one last breath before I do what I must."_

The small fragment of his brain that held a portion of stored resistance refused to breathe in. Barker yelped, "At least tell me who you are!"

Before a response could be given, pain seared Benjamin's chest, twisting the area that held his supposed heart. And though no bullet ripped open his chest, no bayonet cut through his neck, it was clear that Benjamin Barker had just been put to death, leaving only immeasurable pain behind as a remnant of the man he once was. As the ache clouded his vision, the voice spoke again, only it was not a voice from the void of darkness, but his own.

"_I _am Sweeney Todd," he declared in a low tone, biting back the manic laughter he could fell accumulating inside of his throat, making his body tingle with something he had never before felt. He held a new identity, he was a changed man, and with that, he claimed power. This power provided him with strength as the chains of restraint that had endlessly strived to keep his darkness reserved, were broken. Now full distain coursed with his blood, strength that he felt had forsaken him relinquished his sore muscles and broken structure. He was what others in the Rocks had become: An animal, utterly _mad_, hell-bent on the motive that Benjamin Barker had been slain for.

The new name was bitter on his tongue, causing his lips to pucker in distaste, yet his mind to lurch jovially in true wonder. It was as if the two simple words were now his entire being, depicting every dark, twisted thought that had ever flashed in his mind, emphasizing every revulsion he had felt towards the men that had imprisoned him, the men that had killed so many, the man that had taken his life and mercilessly shattered it as it were a fragile piece of glass. It was an odd name, yet a beautiful name, and forever _his_ name. Sweeney Todd.

Yes, he would escape the damned cell, leaving the bits and pieces of Benjamin to lie among the filth of his prison. Todd would flee and retrieve Benjamin Barker's family-no, _his_ own family and slaughter all who opposed him or barricaded his bloody road to vengeance, to salivation.

It was then that Sweeney Todd realized that the voice within the humid air had been his voice all along. The voice that had remained silent for all of those years, awaiting its opportunity to speak, now passed through his lips as his own instead of within his mind. He was the voice, the voice was him.

Curling in the corner of the cell, Todd began to brood upon his escape, his insane plans of retribution. In the back of his mind, he scowled at the mournful sobs that had begun to overwhelm his conscience. These were the sobs of a man unknown, but to the convict's growing alarm, the cries belonged to a man that he presumed had just died.

Perhaps Benjamin Barker had not been killed, but was now a captive to Sweeney Todd's mind.

Running his hands through his disarrayed head of hair, Todd drowned out the imaginary sobs with the continuous thoughts of Turpin lying before him, a gash adorned his throat. When the taunting visions of his revenge could be taken no longer, Sweeney Todd decided that it was the time to flee.

A deadly smirk playing upon his lips as he purged the purity from his spirit, Todd approached the door to his room, pressing his ear to the wood and awaited the arrival of the guard that consistently strolled by, ceasing his walk only to banter at the powerless prisoners.

The resounding clap of the guard's boot heel drew nearer with each step; Benjamin gripped the handle to his door even tighter, his smirk a full smile as pain shot up his arm from the sore state of his swollen fist.

The steps were ringing in Todd's ears, deafening him with the anticipation that grew as boot tapped floor.

He would not fail this time.

**Please review; I love ****all**** of your comments!**


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21**

**London, England.**

"Miss, stop fidgeting," Richard Taft ordered the young girl as he towed her down the gang planks of the ship and onto London streets. The blonde head swiveled backwards to observe her slave ship for the last time, scorn in her gaze, yet her facial expression remained unchanged as her head turned towards the winding roads that lay ahead. Where they would lead was an alarming fact, but the exact way in which they would arrive there was unknown.

Keeping her tongue within her cheek, Johanna stared objectively at the hand that rested upon her arm, its fingers wrapping tightly around her with each resounding footstep down the echoing walkways. Her arm shifted in a rebellious manner, but the rough shake that Taft had given her afterwards was a warning in itself. Crestfallen, she submitted to his demands and rushed through the darkened streets of her dreaded nightmares.

"Are you aware of where you are going?" Johanna questioned, not truly caring if he did or not. In all honesty, she prayed that the officer had not the slightest idea where he was headed and turned on his heel, bringing her back to the ship where she could slip into her cabin of numbness, darkness.

"Yes, Miss, I am well aware. Used to live here, you see," he responded, slightly startled by her words. She had not spoken to him for months, if not for a slight word or too.

The instinct of stomping on the man's foot was all too promising, yet reason, as much as she truly detested it, was harsher than the fingers that bruised her skin.

"Judge Turpin's house is down this way," he whispered to himself as he turned a sharp corner, revealing a suddenly paved road, glowing with soft light from the street lights.

Johanna offered an instinctive wince upon hearing her soon to be guardian's name. But once the door to Turpin's home penetrated her stares, the tempo of her heart's beating increased to a sickeningly high pace. The window she had spent so many years hopelessly observing the world lay above their heads, a large detriment from the ominous house, adorned with carved lions as sentries. She had left one prison and returned to another.

"Please, Mister Taft, sir," her quivering voice beseeched. "Don't send me in there." She clung to his jacket's sleeve and imploringly burned the side of his face with her desperate glare. In fear of succumbing to the girl's earnest wishes, the officer kept his head forward, though his eyes darted to the side and skimmed over her slight figure.

"I must do what has been asked of me."

Johanna coughed back the cries of despair. Of course her pleas would be rejected by the officer. Partially in Taft's defense, she reminded herself that Turpin had most likely threatened the guard, terrifying him into abiding by the tyrant's rules. The defense for the male soon crumpled, dominated by the venom within her withering heart.

"He will beat me..." she informed the man miserably, remembering the statement her previous employer had murmured on the night of the fateful letter's delivery. "He may even kill me.

At first, it seemed the sentry was taking heed of her warning and actually considering the weight of each word. Curtly shaking his head, he muttered in a dead tone, "I am sorry, Miss."

Taft rapped the door with his knuckles, scoffed at the door's knocker, and lifted the brass handle, letting it plummet to the wood's surface.

At this, Johanna jumped. Her breathing seemed to be the reason for her constricted throat, the suffocation darkening her vision. Trembling fingers pressed to her throat, she made attempts to ignore the tears that slipped from her eyelids and poured down her wrists, to her viciously trembling arms, to her tattered boots. If she strained her ears, she could almost hear the faint thump of her guardian's boots upon the polished wood of his home, slowly making their way to the front door, to _her_.

To ensure the girl did not turn and flee, Taft pulled her towards his body and tightened his grip, bringing forth a small whimper from her lips. His head bounced towards the sound, but shot back towards the large doorway as the volume of the deep footsteps increased, like a terrorizing crescendo.

The door's handle began to jiggle ever so slightly; the deep draw of breath could be heard from the confinements of the home.

"P-p-please, sir," the girl moaned, sobs seeping through her high-toned, cracked words. She turned her face to the floor, staring at the dirtied pavement rather than her guardian's smug expression, her capturer, her executioner. He would not see her like this.

She could not see who stood in the doorway of what was once her home, but the leering presence seemed to have been more assuring than staring into the man's face. By her side, Taft's shoulder straightened, his body stiffened at attention.

"Your honor, I have brought the girl." Unless Johanna had imagined it, she could detect a slight shiver behind his informative statement.

Instead of a response, fingers shot out towards the girl's chin, grasping it roughly and jerking her face upward. The action was so sudden, so unexpected, she had not the time to close her eyes shut and refuse to entertain the male's gaze. No, she now stared into the cold, black eyes of her guardian like the helpless quarry that she so pitifully was.

Judge Turpin seemed to have aged, she noticed that much. Red rims encircled the murderous spark in his eyes. His hair had taken on a whiter shade, perhaps because of his demanding profession, but it seemed blatantly obvious that the man had acquired such a worried state because of her absence. A twinge of guilt tugged at her heart, diminished as Turpin's eyes wandered down her ragged figure. He drunk in the sight of her, suddenly aroused by the ragged, almost forbidden look she possessed. It only made him covet her to an even higher extent. And she saw this all within his observational glare.

"Very well, Officer, you are dismissed."

Richard Taft did not bother to hide his expression of relief from the conclusion of his task, but the greedy flame within his gaze erupted to wildfire as he held his palm outwards, expecting some sort of sum for his persistency and obedience.

Turpin studied the opened palm of the Officer, eyes narrowed. "You expect to be rewarded." It was not a question, but a mere observation.

Slightly withdrawing his hand in sudden alarm, Taft babbled his apologies and released Johanna from his tightened grasp within a single moment.

"Enough, Officer," the judge commanded with persuasive authority. After Taft slouched like a disobedient child, Turpin, in a forced voice, began to speak calmly to the guard. "Now, after all that you have done, I am certain a penny or two would do no harm." His ensuring smiles made Johanna's stomach clench in disgust.

He distributed a tip to the shocked man with a hazardous smile upon his lips, a beam of triumph. "Consider the tip a purchase on my behalf. For with that money, I have bought silence." His eyes glinted in the dim light from the streetlamps, a dangerous flicker of forewarning.

"Yes, sir, "Taft said, nodding his head in understanding before turning to make his leave. As his head swiveled to the side, he momentarily caught Johanna's petrified glance. To her distain, the man's expression held regret, and yet he continued to stride down the steps, stance now held upright with tainted pride.

The only man she could have loathed more than the disembarking sentry now placed a hand on her shoulder, curling around her bones like a vulture's claw entrapping its prey. Still, she dared not face him.

Not even bothering to order her inside, his movements were swift and curt, harshly yanking her inside of the house.

Turpin did not release his hold, nor did he slacken his grip as he pulled her through the main hallway. When she faltered, his hand jerked her forward, when she let out a cry of pain, he only increased the strength of his grip. Her cries were a beautiful sound; the edge in her young voice was like a morose song of which he and only he could enjoy. How he had missed the feel of her beneath his hand, the pleas that rose from her thin throat, like the neck of a swan…

"Ah, Beadle!" he called to his companion that rested within his study as he passed the room. "Come and observe our charming little visitor!" Placing both hands on her shoulders, Turpin wrenched the child before him and produced his prize to the snide male.

Bamford's response was nothing more than a malicious smirk and mock bow of his head. "It is a true delight to have you grace us with your compelling presence once more, _my_ _dear_." His lips puckered in delight as she shrunk back from his looming figure, yet recoiled in repulsion when her back slammed into Turpin's torso.

Chest heaving, she remained silent, promising herself that she would not lose her nerve in the midst of her true horrors.

From above, the judge observed the crown of her blonde head in tormented delight. Apart from the haggard appearance she held, his Johanna was still perfect, utterly angelic. Still she held the glorious tresses of silken gold, still her eyes remained pure irises of soft blue. Her skin, apart from the tanned color, was soft under his coarse hands, her body still trembled beneath him, just as she used to. _God, how he yearned for her!_

"Come now," he strained to keep his voice within control, "you must return to your room."

With widened eyes, her mind comprehended the longing within his tone in less than a second. "No, sir, please…" Her small voice beseeched him with all of the sentiment he had been so deprived of.

It was simply too much for him to bear. His clutch on her arms now tightened with all of the strength he could exert, bringing shrill screams of pain from her lips rather than slight whimpers. He hauled her down the hallway, though she struggled and wept, away from the grinning Beadle and towards the stairwell. The small frame he had adored with all of his might was so slight, so perfectly petite; he made absolutely no effort to fight the smile of pleasure that spread towards his lips.

She fought back, surprisingly, with strength she had not parted with. Perhaps the prison had strengthened the child. At this, the smile morphed into a dreaded frown. As he shoved her up the stairs to her room, his only consolation was the simple thought of breaking her until she was the feeble creature that she once was.

The door to the child's room was thrown open, its handle banging against the adjacent wall. Her room had remained untouched for the year or so that she had been gone, save the absence of her birds. She did not deserve them any longer, nor did she deserve his pity in its state of profundity. And yet, a throb of guilt towards her pleas made his eyes mist with emotion. To fight this sudden weakness, he whirled her thrashing figure around to face him as they stood in front of her quaint bed.

"Please-" her hoarse voice was cut off as his hand made sharp contact with her cheek. The blazing accuracy of the blow jerked her head to the side. Blond hair hiding her face, Johanna's breathing had noticeably caught in her throat as the sting in her flesh burned her flushed face.

Somewhat disgusted by his actions, Turpin swiftly brought the girl's body to his, offering her closest thing to a hug that he could offer. His ward's body was stiff and unmoving beneath him; he could almost feel the odium in her broken stature.

"I'm sorry," he nearly wept, strong arms holding her to him though she did not return the embrace. Was it love that caused his tone to break, was it tormenting worry that made each day a living hell without her presence?

As he brought her away from him, staring intently into the eyes that he worshiped, the tyrannous judge realized that all love was banned from his heart as her acidic stare burned his skin. No, it was desire that coursed through his veins. That innocent child that he had housed was dead, as lifeless as her loathsome father and temptress mother. He was now left with the spawn of the Barker's, but she was not his child. So he would feel no guilt.

"I should make you beg for leniency," he stated sinisterly with a wicked scowl upon his face.

The girl bowed her head, a whisper carrying through the room. "Why would I beg when I know that my words will be for naught?" Tears streaked her skin; her feet stumbled away from him.

He advanced towards her retreating figure until her body was pressed against the wall beside her curtained window. "I see prison has not entirely robbed you of your wisdom," he observed coolly, an indication of the coming storm. She turned her face away from his, displaying her reddened cheek.

After he had her cornered, his hands pressed against her beating chest, entrapping her beneath his demining hold. He lowered his voice, a lustful whisper, "I suppose that you departed Botany Bay with your innocence intact as well."

As her thin lips parted in terror, he seized the opportunity to bring his face towards hers. Johanna screamed in the back of her throat, her tone laden with sobs of helplessness. He kissed the space between her shoulder and neck, inhaling the scent that rose from her smooth skin. Her body itself was a mockery, daring him to claim all that was her. Oh, and he would do it. He would have her until she was weak from struggling, exhausted from pleading for the release that would never come to her.

And suddenly, the girl did something he did not expect. Summoning breath within her lungs, she cried for the one man that would never have allowed such horrors to unfold; the one man that would have shielded her from it all even if it meant giving his life to the greedy hands of death.

"FATHER!" Her throat vibrated as she screamed, piercing Turpin's hardened barriers, shattering his confidence, his lust.

He pulled back in shock, his bewilderment expressed upon his face_. Had the child truly called him such? Did the pleading in her tone truly depict her desire to have him as a protecting father rather than the animal he was morphing into?_

Pure guilt rippled though him in shuddering waves. She met his gaze, unfathomable panic written in her misting, wide eyes. It was, by far, too much for him to handle.

The floor creaking beneath him as he spun to the exit, rushing from the room, yet fleeing from the child that had caused his heart to recoil into the bottomless depths of his guilt. He could feel her large eyes following him as he retreated to the safety of the hallway, though he did not dare meet her stares with his own.

This time, he made sure to lock the door behind him before trudging down the stairs where he would seek comfort from a numbing bottle of spirits.

**Cape Town, Africa**

Using his bare hands, Sweeney Todd pummeled his fists against the iron wall that held him within his blackened cell. He repeated the rhythmic pattern of ringing thumps, ignoring the harsh ache in his knuckles, until the passing officer ceased his stride before the door.

"I'd suggest you quit your bangin' before I make it your skull that's bangin' against this 'ere door!" the officer demanded, his voice ringing throughout the silent prison.

Smirk concealed by the iron door, Todd opened his mouth in reply. "Why don't you see to it that I do stop, you bloody son of a bitch!"

Silence greeted the provoking comment that is until it was broken by the eerily calm reply of the outdoor officer.

"Do you wish to repeat that, prison rat?"

"Yes, I very much do," Todd began lightly as if he were discussing politics rather than enraging an infuriated officer. "I said that if you wish for me to stop banging on this here door," he rapped his knuckles on the prison's doorway, mockingly, "then you should come in here and see to it that I _do _stop, you frightened, repugnant son of a bitch."

Again, silence.

"And, _sir," _the prisoner added, fearing that his words had gone ignored, "I am quite sure that _prison rats _are not capable of speech. I don't suppose an ignorant _tub of shit_ such as you would know that, though, so I suppose I should pity you rather than expose your flaws."

Anger seemed to stab at Todd through the thick prison door as the jingling of keys was heard.

"You better get on your knees, yeh bleeding idiot, and pray to the Lord for mercy because I sure as 'ell will not show any," the man's enraged voice spat as the click of the lock echoed throughout the room. The captive shaped his body into a stance of preparation. That click was like a gunshot, signifying that the time to act was now.

Just as the officer stepped inside, nightstick in hand, Sweeney Todd hurled himself towards the guard and brought his enemy to the floor before the man could even contemplate what had occurred. Being an armed man, however, proved to be the advantage as he struggled against Todd's unfaltering grip on his neck. With his club, the man relentlessly beat at Sweeney's skull, attempting to call for assistance when the prisoner's clutch had slackened.

The higher power was revealed when Todd snatched the club with his fingers, leaving one hand still wrapped around the officer's neck, and forced the raised arm to the floor. The baton was sent spiraling on the stone floor and away from its owner. Now that his grip was free, Todd wrapped his second hand around the officer's neck and applied all pressure to his fingers. The man trapped beneath him thrashed with strength of an entrapped animal, but his flailing arms soon grasped the con's arms in order to pry the fingers away from his windpipe.

The blotched skin of the convict was a molted purple, the cut off breaths of air made the male's heartbeat slow and his eyes explode with flashes of red.

His crushed throat expanded suddenly as the pressure around his neck disappeared, gone as if the hands had evaporated into the musty air. Breaths flew down his throat, concluding in a harsh fit of coughs.

Todd clenched the fingers he had just used to choke the man to his near death. "Damn it," he cursed, "don't make me kill you."

The officer coughed a response, cleared his raspy throat, and sputtered, "Y-you are not goin' to simply walk out of 'ere. When I tell the others of this, they'll catch yeh and kill yeh for this outrage!"

Todd's spine stiffened at the warning, a cold glare leaking into his expression. The remorse for his violent actions died along with the control remaining within his tortured, almost insane mind. The last reason he had to live within the cruel world, the reuniting with his family, had just been horribly threatened. He could not have that.

"You will not be able to tell the other officers," he stated simply with a blow to the man's face using his raw knuckles. As the officer's head cracked against the stone, Todd sought the opportunity to wrap his fingers around his quarry's neck once more. "No, I do not think that a dead man can speak."

At the words, the guard's mouth opened in a cry of shock. The shrieking sound halted abruptly when the convict lifted the man slightly upward, hand still wrapped around the fallen man's throat, and thrust his head against the stone again, this time with more force.

The ensuing splinter of the officer's head was notable, the blood that pooled from the cracks in his skull even more so. The bulging eyes of the guard widened in horror as Todd sent the man's head against the hard surface again, again, and again, strength increasing with every blow until the bone inside the man's head had been ultimately flattened. His skull was now flattened to a pulp beneath his hands, a wad of gruesome, bleeding flesh.

With a cry of shock, Sweeney scrambled away from the now lifeless body of his victim. He held his blood-stained hands to his chest, staring at the body with his brow furrowed, gasps of trepidation stripping him of all control.

He had to think now! There was no turning back, he had killed a man. The chance to escape had never been greater at that moment and the chances of escape afterward were inconceivable. He would be murdered, just as the officer said, if he remained.

As he struggled to his feet with eyes still locked on the bloody carcass, Todd steadied himself using the assistance of the surrounding walls. Upon realizing the body that lay before him held weaponry for his advantage, he could feel the gags accumulating within his stomach. Yet he managed to choke down the heaves of sickness as he approached the fallen male, bent forward, and rummaged through the dead man's possessions. After the grisly task had been completed, he pocketed yet another gun and a hunting knife, along with a small canister of water. Just as he was about to remove the officer's boots for his own use, the approaching sounds of men's voices grew from the end of the long prison hallway.

The boots remained on the body's feet, long forgotten, for Sweeney Todd had slipped from his cell and began his desperate sprint in the opposite direction of the growing voices. The racing thoughts within his mind became clouded with panic as the voices morphed into shouts.

With a grunt, he demanded his mind to produce one single destination at a time in order to remain calm enough to continue his escape, the first being the stairwell of which he had descended so many countless days ago. The ache in his legs from lack of use implored his lunging joints to cease their pointless flight, pure persistency summoned strength he had stored within his deprived body. Not even the approaching shouts of anger could deter him from his plot, it had been said before: He would not fail this time.

The stairs were darkened, tripping him with each rising step. Hands trembling, he clawed his way to the top of the stairwell and bound towards the main exit of the building. He had made it above ground, the first destination was completed.

The door swung open and Todd squeezed his eyes shut to prevent the sunlight from blinding his vision. But instead of piercing sunlight, the insides of his lids remained black. Hesitantly, he stumbled outside into the cool night and opened his eyes. It was nightfall.

Now the second destination…

Though Sweeney Todd had planned on creating a proceeding destination for his flight, all thoughts went absolutely blank as the prison building behind him rang with oncoming thuds of officers' boots. There was no time to think now.

Plunging into the shadows of the night, Sweeney ducked into the concealment of the town's streets, hiding amongst crates of goods and shielding himself away behind corners of buildings. His bare feet made little to no sound in the roads, but the sharp pebbles ensure that his feet were torn to shreds as he advanced towards the one location he thought to be the wisest: The town's docks.

The only problem seemed to be that he had not the slightest clue as to how to find the docks.

Thus began Sweeney Todd's helpless scrounger of the city, resulting in bloody feet and bottomless aggravation. For what seemed to be hours of torment, the convict's body shrieked with protest after the days he had spend shut up in a lonely cell. As his mind wandered to the thought of the prison he had just fled, his mind produced the image of the officer he had so horrendously slaughtered. But what should he have done? What other could he have taken that would have resulted in less bloodshed but still ensured the uniting with his beloved family? The answer was simple, but almost unacceptable. There was no other option; he had done what he must. But since when was Sweeney Todd frightened of condoning murder?

A hand fell upon his shoulder and as he whirled to face the assailant with hunting knife unsheathed, Todd's eye fell upon the young face of Peter.

Sighing in relief, but frustration towards what he had nearly done, Sweeney Todd tugged the boy into a shadowed alleyway and hissed, "Boy, I would have killed you! What the hell are you doing here? You are supposed to be with John!"

"God almighty, Ben, what's happened to yeh?" he inquired, appalled by the man's ghastly appearance.

Shaking the boy roughly, Sweeney repeated, "Why are you here?"

The boy's eyes glistened with unshed tears. "Ben, they bloody killed John, I know it!"

Todd ignored the leap his heart made with the news. "What do you mean?" he questioned lowly.

"We were cornered by officers, Ben, and when we ran, they shot at us. We got separated, so I turned back 'ere to find the docks and sneak into one of 'em boats. I've been lookin' for days! And John…I don't know where 'e went! They bloody killed him, Ben!" Sobs edged his voice.

Though irked by the boy's usage of his dead name, Todd placed a hand on the boy's shoulder and hauled him from the alleyway. "Take me to the docks," he demanded roughly, "and never call me by _that _name again."

Peter looked up in bewilderment, but vigorously shook his head. "I don't know where the docks are, Be-…I mean, sir."

Screams interrupted the conversation, originating towards the end of the black road. Without a word of warning, the prisoner bolted in the differing direction and towards what they believed to be a forsaken market place.

In low whispers, Peter indicated the rotting fish carcasses sprawled to the side of the boat. "Sir, we must be near the docks. Look at the fish to the side." He pointed towards the side with his forefinger.

It may have been little information, yet it was all that each of them had. Swiveling in diverging directions, they turned down abandoned streets and ran with mustered agility when the voices of their captors grew with each step.

Perhaps it was sheer luck that sent the smell of salt water to the prisoners' noses after they stumbled into yet another darkened passageway.

"We're close," Peter exclaimed in glee. He now led the way with a bounce in his step, as if he were simply on an outing with his companion.

The source of swooshing water could have been mistaken for the pounding of blood within his ears, but the magnificent sight of a small rowboat pulled ashore, rushing waters glinting in the moonlight, and paper-white sand was an assurance to Todd that they had made it to the very area they were destined to find. If this sight was not a gift from the Lord himself, then the already well stocked rowboats were unmistakably so.

Of course the owners of the rowboat had left a man to guard their possessions. Peter, not alarmed in the least, let his fist sink into the man's face, his body falling to the ground, face first in sand. Todd frowned at this, but remained impassive.

The boy than grasped the edge of the boy and began to heave it towards the glistening waters, sending Sweeney a beseeching look for assistance. The older man nodded his head once and began to tug at the rowboat as well until it was bobbing upon the water's surface.

Beaming broadly even when the trip would result in inevitable failure, the boy gestured with his hand and said jovially, "After you, sir!"

After pulling his throbbing feet from the water and winced as the salt water stung his open wounds, Todd hauled himself into the rowboat, Peter following suite.

As they, for the last time, rowed madly away from their prison, Sweeney Todd observed the area where he had lost himself; where Benjamin Barker had drawn his last breath; the location where he had ruthlessly shattered a man's skull until he bled crimson death.

Where were they headed to? Todd's mind was no longer capable of providing himself with a destination. Maybe they would live to see another prison; perhaps they would die at sea. Whichever end they were to meet, at least they had been granted more time of life, freedom than their unfortunate inmates.

Lying beside the boy, the man fell into the deepest slumber of his life, almost glad that he had a companion of some sort on their journey to the unknown.


	22. Chapter 22

A/N: Hey everybody! Thank you for all of your supportive emails and reviews! Writing this is one great thing, but hearing all of your opinions make me so happy! Thanks again!

**Chapter 22**

**London, England**

With a sigh of agitation, the Beadle leaned in the doorway of his companion's obscene library. As Turpin mindlessly babbled on about Johanna's resistance towards his advances, her hysterical pleas, his torturous guilt, Bamford struggled to thrust a sentence into the heap of Turpin's words.

"My lord," the Beadle interjected, "perhaps you should speak to the girl."

The judge gazed up from his kneecaps and stared hard at the man before him. "I don't want to _speak _with her," he spat, eyes glistening with accumulating fury. It was all too clear what the judge actually wanted from the girl and the idea of his desire being nothing more than a heartfelt conversation was an amusing jest. It had been two weeks since her return and the visible restraint within the judge's eyes was beginning to diminish.

"Yes, I know very well what you want from her," Bamford droned with a droll roll of his eyes, unnoticed by Turpin for he had bent his head to study the ornate floor rug. The sentiments of the judge were almost comical; how could he feel remorse for making the girl suffer? Had Turpin forgotten that the child had sent _him_ into a senseless plight for a _year _because of her blasted escape?

Chair squeaking, the judge leapt to his feet in one sudden moment and declared lowly, "I am going to confront her." He glided from the room, his footsteps dangerously booming.

Smirking to himself, the Beadle strolled over to the recently occupied chair and delicately placed himself upon its padded material, prepared to hear the girl screaming for mercy as his master did what he wished. Soon, _he_ would do the same.

The door to the girl's room creaked as it swung open, the sound stilling Johanna as she sat on the edge of her small bed. Turpin raised a brow as her open gazed remained fixed at the foot of her mattress as if she were waiting for something, or in her case, _someone_, to fill the empty space.

"Johanna," he stated with dying authority, "we must speak."

Eyes still locked upon the spot, her head nodded slightly in acknowledgement to his words, her movements curt, empty. The golden strands that fell into her eyes as she did so left Turpin begging for air to travel to his lungs; his fists had clenched until his fingernails pierced the rough skin of his palms.

"Look at me," he demanded with a large step towards her.

The suffering of obeying his orders was depicted in the child's eyes, but nonetheless, she followed his command and stared upward at the man with a tear filled gaze.

So miserable was her gaze, the judge felt a stab of remorse at his supposedly unfeeling heart, the stab spreading into a wound that seemed to engulf his entire body with its aching flame. Sighing, he spoke, "Why do you cry, child?"

Softly, as if she were speaking to herself, Johanna sputtered a low whimper. "I miss _him." _She may have been staring at her guardian when the words had been spoken, but her blue irises appeared to travel to a different time, a different place, and a very different man.

At this, the judge's spine straightened. What was the child speaking of?

Ignoring the bewildering comment, Turpin began his heavy stroll around the room, pausing at the area where the child's birds use to hang, caged like prisoners to the picturesque room. Silly, stupid creatures, they were; planting ideas of daring escape in such a young girl's mind. Perhaps they were to be blamed for her flight, and yet, Turpin felt the utmost responsibility for his ward's earnest desire to flee from him.

Her eyes burned his skin as he took the material of the window's curtains between his fingers and brought them together, blocking her view from the outside world, blocking the outside world from her.

The girl's lingering trepidation within the room was nearly tangible.

Without facing her, the judge said, "Are you aware of the reason I had that officer bring you to me during nightfall?"

Her voice had remained silent, but the inner conscience was roaring with shrieks. The messenger Taft had sent upon docking had informed them the moment he had returned of Turpin's wish, stating that they wait for night to arrive before bringing her to his home. The answer was plain, obvious, yet speaking of it was like a burdening weight upon the tongue.

He took the pregnant silence as a cue to answer his own question. "It was because I did not want anyone to see you being marched through the streets like a common convict…because I cared too much to allow the condemning gazes be directed towards _my_ ward." He put emphasis on the word of possession, making it notable that he owned her. "I've done everything for you, Johanna…from the day I took you in as my own to the night of your ruthless betrayal." His face still remained away for hers. "I want you to tell me something Johanna…and I want you to answer this question with honesty."

The odium within his tone was prominent, yet a twinge of torment left Johanna wandering what exactly the man was feeling for her. Most curiosity, however, was directed towards her guardian's unknown question.

"Why did you run away from your home…from me?" It was then that he turned to face her and allowed the full measure of his question to crash into her mind; his eyes not far from pleading.

For a single moment, Johanna actually felt regret for all that she had done. The guilt was overwhelming as she studied the man's tormented gaze, his undying sorrow because of her escape. _She had wronged him, hadn't she?_

Then something dawned on her that she had not predicted to arise from her morose thoughts.

_But that was exactly what she had done…She had _escaped_! Had her home been a normal, caring haven, she would not have run from it! Did the man truly want to know her reasoning for her frantic dash to liberation? Then he would have it! She would force him to listen to the horrors that he forced her to undergo at such an early age and it would be _he _that felt the immeasurable guilt!_

"I ran from you," she began quietly, "because I was dying whilst I remained." Pride brought a small edge to her voice, fear stripped her of volume.

Turpin leaned backward, as if the words were a strike to his chest rather than a simple statement. "I hardly think you would have died," he retorted with growing antagonism.

Now he was toying with her unspoken emotions like a large, bored cat with a string of yarn. Had the man no consideration whatsoever?

"Don't you understand?" Johanna cried, the brimming tears streaming from her eyes. "For years I underwent the same brutal treatment of…you hurt me so much," her statement began to succumb to pitiful sobs. "You did those _things _to me as if I were nothing to you but a thrill. I just wanted someone to love me…" She trembled with hysterics, hands clasped tightly, "but you did not feel the same. To you, I was simply a girl kept alive for your _pleasure..._"

When she had finished her piteous rant of fragmentary accusations, the room succumbed to its previous silence. Turpin's eyes were like the doors to his soul, portraying the terrifying resentment that writhed within his looming figure. He did not move, he did not touch her, but Johanna shot from her seat and backed against the metallic bars of her bed's headboard upon catching a glimpse of his deadly glare, preparing for the blow that would eventually come smashing against her skin.

_She should not have spoken. _

After her head had been pressed against the bars, much like that of a prison cell, Turpin began his petrifying advance, words slow, accurate, and above all things, lethal.

"You ran because of our affair, is it? Were you too frightened to embrace womanhood, darling?" Each word, each syllable, was spat like they were bitter in taste. "Well, if you are woman enough to evade your home and bear the responsibility of stealing, surely you are old enough to take on a woman's role in the bedroom, no?"

The clattering of metal bars signified the child's uncontrollable tremors. "Don't do this…please, not again," the girl wept acrimoniously. She cried with greater force this time, squeezing her eyes shut to avoid staring into the face of her childhood guardian, her present day tormentor.

In order to fight the flourishing remorse in his heart, the judge violently gnawed at his lower lip and focused on the physical pain rather than the internal ache. It was a successful detriment.

"Not again?" he chuckled darkly. "Johanna, my sweet, you make it seem like I have had you before!"

Her blue eyes glinted with accusation as they popped open. "But you have!" she retorted, exasperated, yet helplessly terrified.

Shaking his head, Turpin continued his painfully slow pursuit, now walking beside of the bed towards her. "No, my dear, you are incorrect. What we went through was menial in comparison towards what a man does with a woman." A sadistic smile darkened his face. "I have never fully _claimed you, _my little rosebud. I wished to save that for a special occasion…the night of our marriage, perhaps."

And as sadistic as his confessions were, they were absolutely truthful. The nights he had spent with the child before her escape were nothing more than wandering touches, mindless insults, and tempting advances. Perhaps to a child it was the ending of the word itself, but to the judge it was merely the beginning of his clever scheme to seduce the girl, beckoning her to shred her innocence, even though it was that sweet innocence that had made him intoxicated with lust to begin with. Nonetheless, she still remained a virgin, a painfully beautiful, virtuous virgin.

The girl's only reaction to the remark was widened eyes that skimmed over the standing man's body in dread. She sunk backward, as if the new had robbed the child of all her remaining strength. A promise she had made to her father seemed to jeer at her now, displaying her utter weakness, for not only she to realize, but Turpin as well.

"Marriage," she echoed in a voice barely above a whisper. Face blank, her eyes tore away from the man to her side and stared openly at the ceiling above her head. The pure white paint had begun to crack.

"Yes, but seeing that you are so eager to embrace adulthood," he placed himself beside her; face inches from hers, "I suppose that this night, being the night of our engagement, will have to do."

And with that, his lips were on hers. She screamed into his mouth for barely a moment before slumping onto the flat of her back as he indulged in his desires after so many months of emptiness. She closed her eyes once again, refusing to entertain his look of triumph with her pointless tears, her beseeching glances. They would do nothing for her.

As she felt the hands upon her body, wandering over her every curve, every inch of her stilling body, she could feel the familiar darkness seep into her mind. Like so many countless times, the blackness was the sanctuary she sought, the home she implored to gain. Without thinking, contemplating, or even caring, Johanna plunged into the never-ending whirl of nothing, gladly allowing oblivion to take hold of her mind and carry her to its realm of serenity.

Through it all, Turpin consistently remembered that everything he was doing was justified, that the shield of being her future husband made him absolutely blameless. There was no fault in tearing her silky blue dress to shreds; he would not be punished for taking his ward as if she were legally married to him. He had done as he wished, and after he had concluded the lustful sin, the child remained still, eyes never opening. As he bent forward to brush a strand of fragrant golden tresses from her damp skin, he felt the faint tickle of her breath against his palm, a reassurance that she had simply fainted during his defiling act.

After gathering himself together, the judge occupied the foot of her bed where the child had once been so passionately staring. Running trembling hands over the wrinkled shirt he had thrust on, he thought upon his recent actions in disgust. The child remained limp, pressed against the opposite side of the mattress, her yellow hair surrounding her soundless head. Only once did her eyes flutter open, and with that a moan of distress flew from her parted lips. Soon, the girl had gone limp once more.

_He had stripped her of her virginity. Lord, what had he done? But he was now her fiancé, for God's sake! _

A hand reached out from the darkness, wavering in midair until falling upon his clenched fist. As Turpin studied the angelic fingers curled around his own, his gaze traveled to the owner's arm, then heaving breasts, and finally her face. Johanna squinted in the darkness of the room, gawking intently into Turpin's eyes as she clutched the thick blanket to her quivering, slim form.

"Papa?" she murmured, causing Turpin to inwardly recoil in horror. "Oh, papa, p-p-please hold me. I had a…h-h-horrible nightmare." A second hand reached forward to grasp him, only an addition to the man's intense state of shock.

Without responding, Turpin slowly stood to his feet and began a backwards retreat from the room, stumbling like a blind man towards the door, shying away from her eyes like a child caught in the wrong. His hand groped for the doorknob, almost brining forth weeping and laughter all at once as he threw the door open.

"Why d-d-do you l-l-leave, papa?" she questioned franticly, until the realism of her situation was unveiled. If it was not the sharp, stabbing pain within throughout her body that assured her of the _nightmare_ being a reality, then it was the light that pooled into the room from the opened doorway and illuminated the judge's shocked expression. Her father was no there waiting to comfort her, he would never be there.

The dreaded realization was shown upon her young, distressed face. She stared at him with piercing betrayal, mouth wide with shock. The moment erupted when her parted lips began to produce screams of horror towards what had happened, towards the searing pain that claimed every agonized part of her body. And then there was the petrifying reminder that they were to be wed, the torture would be permitted as he held the title of her future husband. At this, the shrieks traveled from her tingling chest all the way to her widened mouth in a heart-wrenching, shrill pitch, deafening her guardian whilst utterly exhausting her. Sobbing violently, screaming without leniency, she reached towards the end of the bed, caressing the air as if a person sat at its foot.

Turpin fled from those screeches, not even bothering to close the door behind him, and rushed down the hallway. Flying down the stairs, Turpin rushed past the smug Beatle and fled to the safety of his own room.

If he had not grasped the headboard with his shaking, yet shockingly steadying hands, he undoubtedly would have fallen to the floor. As vomit generated from deep antipathy seeped up his throat, he ran a hand though his dampened hair, pausing only when he caught his reflection in the mirror located above his vanity. A disheveled, despicable creature stared back at him…A tyrannous beast that had just stripped a defenseless girl of her dignity, the remnant of her innocence.

After walking forward, he sent a folded fist into the mirror, uncaring when the glass tore at his hand, grimacing as it shattered into the tiniest of fragments. He then watched the blood pool down his arm, sobbing his unending regret for betraying the one child he was supposed to shelter from the monsters of the world; the monster that he had become.

**Atlantic Ocean**

"Ben, we're goin' to bloody die, ain't we?" Peter questioned nonchalantly as he rolled to face his mate.

In return, Todd glowered at the child and muttered, "I told you to stop callin' me that name."

With a shrug of his shoulders, the boy sat straight and sighed. "We got no bleedin' supplies, we don't know where the bloody 'ell we are, and the bloody sun is goin' to drive me mad with bloody thirst…I'd say we got about a week, give or take a day. Shall we wager?"

The boy, however calm he was about the matter, was completely accurate with his words. The food that had been left within the boat vanished after a week; their water supply was used prudently until the maddening sun had provoked them to drink every sacred drop.

Violent storms had stripped them of their maps, compasses, blankets, even the scattered pieces of their mustered strength. The sea had tossed their boat like a child's toy upon the roaring waters, smashing them down upon the water's stone-hard surface. Every splash of salt water burned Todd's shriveled and infected wounds, his throat felt as if it were enflamed as sea traveled through his mouth and filled his lungs with its contents. The wood of their small, god-sent boat had been torn near to shreds, leaving them with a thin strip of wood to lay upon under the boiling intensity of the sun's glare. Time had been kept with knife marks upon the side of their boat per day, but the side had been swept away in a specific squall, as if the rainstorm had swept away time itself.

All that remained was a soiled piece of rope used to tether their bodies to the wood of their decrepit rowboat; and even _that_ was beginning to uncoil.

"I'd prefer to not place bets upon the time of my death, boy," the con replied bitterly while withdrawing his hand from the cool water. All they needed was a shark attack to finish them off, concluding their lives with a series of sharp stabs in every inch of their crumpled body as they writhed in the mouth of the ocean predator. _What a charming way to die._

"Come now, Ben, let's 'ave a bit of fun 'fore we die!"

Shooting his head to the side, Todd hoarsely demanded, "I said stop callin' me that name!"

As the boy slammed a shaking fist upon the wood's surface, he shrieked to the sky, "Damn it, do yeh think I'm goin' to simply forget yeh name because of your fanatical revenge plot?!"

Gritting his teeth, Sweeney Todd cursed the day he had spoken to the boy of his vengeance against the men that had wronged him, even if it meant condoning cold-blooded murder. Peter had been taken aback by his friend's change of personality, even more so by the decreasing strength within his companion as the days grew longer. Perhaps it was that one vengeful motive that kept Sweeney Todd with breath in his chest.

Without the desire to sustain argument, the man tucked his head in the crook of his arm and shrank away from the piercing rays.

"Least John was willin' to have a bit of fun 'fore he died," Peter murmured harshly under his breath.

Todd prodded his head up with a sore hand. "Boy, you don't know he's dead," he pointed out.

Incensed, the young man began to ramble on. "We were surrounded in the middle of the god-forsaken rainforest by a bushel of guards…there was no chance for us! If I hadn't run I'd 'ave been shot, no questions asked...But John…oh, the bastard just stared into the faces of those guards when I told 'im to follow! He's dead…he's dead…all 'e could speak about was walking in the market back 'ome with 'is family when 'e found them and I took away his chance to do just that! I bloody left 'im there to die!"

For a moment, it appeared that the boy was beginning to sob dry tears of regret, but his arm shot to his face and any betraying expressions were quickly concealed.

Their meeting in the African Town had been pure chance. If the boy had fled in a different direction or spent a second more in the winding mountains, perhaps he would not have ran into the darkened town and stumbled upon the wandering escapee. But the conflict within the young man was notably harming him, most likely since he had fled from the guards, from John.

Speaking solemnly, as if he were consoling the adolescent, Todd began, "It's not your fault, son. Just save your energy…you need it."

"Oh…I deserve to die…after what I did to that officer, I deserve everything I have comin' to me."

With a raised brow, Todd sighed deeply and questioned, "What did you do?"

With a grimace of morbid honesty, Peter explained, "That Officer Adrian. On the night of 'is escape, I killed the bastard…a good stab to the chest. For all that he's done…but I made it more painful than it 'ad to be…I shouldn't 'ave done that."

The energy spent from the boy's hysterics clearly exhausted the child. Head rolling about, the boy moaned in agony and curled his legs to his chest. His labored breathing was deep, slowing.

After minutes of the consistent water's swoosh, Peter pleadingly gazed at his companion. Quietly, he begged with wide eyes, "Would yeh tell me about your daughter, Ben? Would yeh…please, Ben."

For once, Sweeney Todd did not object to hearing his past name. The lingering thought of his child abated any antagonism that came along with the tormenting mention of the man he once was. He knew what the boy was doing, but accepting the fact was the true task. The boy knew of his devotion to revenge towards those who had wronged him and he sought an end to it. And what better way to bury another man's devotion to revenge than speak of his blissful child, the only light in his dark, depressive world?

"What do you want to know?" he queried hoarsely, burying the raw burn in his throat.

Peter sighed thoughtfully, eyes glazing with distant memories. "I want yeh to tell me about what she looks like so I don't forget. I want to know about her mother so I can thank the Lord for making such a wonderful girl…I want you to speak of her laughter, her kindness towards others…how she devoted herself to so many others without the thought of reward. I want to remember her, Ben…I want to remember before…before I die." He reached a hand towards the man and clutched at his wrist, pleading as his eyes reddened, but was if from the salty air or tears?

Closing his eyes, the older of the two thought back to the days where his world seemed to have had an actual purpose in life; a purpose that was not based upon indomitable vengeance but the love of his child. The idea now appeared to be a blurred reality, almost brining forth the question if he had actually spent those sacred months with his daughter? Had he really been gifted with her presence or was that, too, just a tormenting, mocking, yet forbiddingly wonderful dream?

"Yellow hair," the whisper was fervent, "blue eyes…such beautiful blue eyes."

"Like her mother?" Peter asked softly, his words broken by suppressed sobs.

Though the memory was barely existent, Sweeney could still recall the connection he had first made with the girl. He had called her Lucy…

"Yes, so much like," an intake of breath, "her mother.

The boy's grip on his wrist tightened, yet the pain in Todd's arm was incomparable to the agony that took place inside of his bloodied body.

"Do you remember how she sang to Will when he was sick…how 'e wanted to 'ear the song his wife would sing…and she sang, Ben, she did. She sat right there and sang that pretty li'l song…"

As Todd inhaled a breath of fresh memories, he could feel his skin cool at the thought.

"She had such a jingly laugh, too. I felt like a free man when she laughed…" The voice stopped and Todd whirled his head to the side, assuring himself the boy was still alive. The diminished light with Peter's eyes tugged at his slowed heart.

"You loved her so much, Ben…I've never known somethin' like that." With each uttered sound, the boy's breathing faltered and rose with greater difficulty. "I wish I could."

Todd's wrist was suddenly strained by Peter's unfaltering grip. As the boy closed his eyes, a certain sleep overcame him. But this was not a sleep of which he could wake from. It was the sleep that claimed every man on earth when his time had arrived. Infuriated, Todd struggled towards the crumpled body.

Death shouldn't have taken the boy within its unending slumber, it should have waited. He was just a child!

"Boy, wake up!" Sweeney Todd demanded, jostling the body roughly. "You're a child; it isn't your time, not yet!"

There was no response from the stilled Peter.

Wrist still within the dead boy's unfaltering grasp, the con tilted his head upon the wood of the boat. It would only be a matter of time before death claimed him as well.

Finally, though, the teen's face held the peace that he had not seen for as long as he had known him, save the few times he had shared a laugh with his daughter. It was a refreshing observation, the hand that remained tightened around his wrist, however, was not.

Todd's body slumped, his mind distressing him with the undying omen that somewhere in the pitiless, inhuman world, his little daughter was undergoing the same amount of undying torture as he was.

In a sudden explosion of color and a dull throb of pain within his tensed frame, the man's vision blurred until he too, fell into the outstretched arms of blissful unconsciousness.


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23**

**London, England**

If a man of power was to rule over the flocks of filth with an iron fist, he was to do it without a twinge of remorse. If he was not to lose a wink of sleep after observing a public execution, he was to purge the weakness within his soul and occupy the void with icy stone.

But if a man of power was to hold his beloved ward against her will, forcing her to do the unimaginable, the _unthinkable_, he would have to rid all consciousness that weighed at his heart; he would need to strip himself of the humanity that he clung to and wash off the sorrows like water over dirtied skin.

As much as he desired to do so, the powerful Judge Turpin could simply not forsake his guilt or his shame for the disgraceful acts he had preformed against his Johanna. It would not have been false to state that the judge would have given absolutely anything to morph into an unfeeling animal that hungered for the girl that sat in her room, alone each day. Of course, the recourse did not stop him from entirely all of his proceedings, for they were to be wed. Yet the shock of such actions left him spiraling with nausea as the Beadle curiously watched his master succumb to the profound guilt that endlessly engulfed him.

Yes, he had retreated to the previous acts he had preformed to the girl before she had been carted to the blasted desert. It was as he had admitted to doing: Wandering touches, perhaps a lustful caress of her body if he was truly brave that day. And through it all, the helpless child would whimper, or tremble with trepidation. Sometimes she even screamed her distress as he acted through his blind temptation, the sound piercing his ears without impunity.

In all simplicity, he was dying. If he did not have her, he would die. If he did have her, the guilt would kill him. Never before in his life had Judge Turpin ever felt so entrapped by a simple creature, a small girl that seemed to hold his entire being within her cool palms. She was a mockery and he was a fool, blinded by utter devotion to a girl that did not even share a single droplet of his pure blood.

Turpin had not laid claim to the child after that dreadful night, the evening that she had reached towards him and woefully wept for her father. Meandering touches? Yes, he would go mad without easing some of his desires as it had been said. But making love to the girl when he felt as if he were committing the ultimate sin of rape? No, he doubted that would ever occur again.

It was almost comical that he had once fancied the idea his precious Johanna would fall for him someday, confessing her unending desire to be his, thus concluding in a blissful life filled with tempting seductions and erotic temptations. Now, he clung to that dream, believing that perhaps when they were wed, she would understand that his actions were for her, not only himself. Or _were_ they only for him?

To deter any suspicions of weakness, Turpin bragged about his night, along with the following experiences with the child, to his right hand man. Forcing laughter, the judge spoke of her silly pleading, her utter failure to resist his advances. Bamford listened wearily, sharing the same fake smile upon his portly face. Turpin was always a skilled man, gifted with the ability to lie without a trace of unease from his fellow court members. The Beadle, though, saw through most of his false claims, either because he was informed of them by the very source or he had seen past the plastered smile and into the judge's reasoning mind. The man was obviously lying when he spoke lightly over the matter of claiming his ward; the thought notably drove him mad.

Unbeknownst to Turpin, the Beadle's accusations were accurate. Even when the judge simply gazed at her, the girl would shrink away from his deep eyes, shuddering softly. The sound of her whimpers was still strangely beautiful; reality was still a piercing stab to the chest. Not even consolation from his prayers soothed the pain nor did they ease his cravings, his raw hunger. How he wished to feel her struggle beneath him once more! Then, with a breath of sharp intake, he would internally lash at himself for having such horrendous thoughts about a girl who was meant to be raised as his own even if they were to be united as one, though no one had been informed of the engagement. Not yet.

The Beadle, who had remained slightly amused by his master's pitiful remorse, had maintained a distance from the girl ever since her arrival, but like Turpin, his control was beginning to falter. _Unlike_ Turpin, however, he was not fearful of laying claim to the girl now that she had been stripped of her innocence. Now, he could do whatever he wished with her. If he had done so before, no doubt her loss of virginity would have been noticed and who else would there be left to suspect? No, now all was well, he could do as he wished. It was only a matter of time…a matter of planning.

After at least two days of undying torture, Turpin spoke to the Beadle.

"I wish to speak with Johanna," he stated dryly. He had forsaken warmth in his tone long ago, the effort was pointless. "Perhaps we can speak inside my study..." The idea, to the judge, seemed to be a pitiful attempt to hold a decent relationship with his Johanna, even more so with the Beadle, who went to great lengths in order to hide the flourishing scowl that had spread to his lips.

Bamford leaned against the doorway's woodwork and idly traced the designs with his fingers. "Of course, my lord, the child would be a fool to refuse."

"She will not be _permitted_ to refuse," the man retorted, fire burning amongst his ash colored eyes.

At moments like this, Bamford bit back his words of objection and brought forth the pungent false cheer. "Yes, my lord."

Suddenly, opportunity made itself known. The Beadle straightened and spoke with in a high voice, shrill almost with a pleading edge to it. "Shall I retrieve the girl, your honor?" The man's fingernails grasped the woodwork forcefully; an obscured indication of the man's fervor.

Turpin's returning stare was nearly lifeless. "Yes, bring her to my study…I just wish to see her." Beneath his breath, he muttered, "Just to look at her."

Thankful that the judge held no distrust, the Beadle nearly ran from the obscene library and bounded up the stairs, jostling one of the maids aside in the process. Being the uncaring man that he usually was, Bamford, breathing heavily, rushed down the second floor's labyrinth of hallways until he came to the child's door and brutally forced it open.

Johanna was seated upon her window chair, fitted in a silken dress of lush red, a tempting color. To her utter displeasure, the neckline steeped low, revealing more of her chest area than she had ever wished to display to the hungry eyes of her captors. Nonetheless, _they_ seemed to enjoy it very much. The dress was a taunting reminder of what she had become since the Judge had roughly claimed her innocence, and if it was not the label of a whore that made her misery increase, then it was the total shock her body held when she was placed into the fancy clothing after a year of tattered shreds. Time would only enforce the fact that she missed the rags she had once worn. She missed the bumpy cot mattresses, the blistering heat of the Australian sun, and the blinding rays of light. In fact, she had often slept in her window seat rather than the luxurious bed she owned, for the cloth was like needles to her skin when she recalled the horrors that had taken place within the winding silk.

Even the absence of her songbirds was taunting, gifting the room with its eerie silence that was only broken by the approaching footsteps that sent liquid fear coursing through her veins.

As Bamford forced his way into her room, abruptly in manner, the child jumped to her feet in terror as he began his advance without even an intake of breath, a pause for rest. She opened her mouth to shriek, but his plump hand clamped on her rosy lips and muffled the sound. She stared, wide eyed into his own unfeeling irises, nearly sobbing as he pressed her against a near wall, just as Turpin had done upon her arrival. But a cry for her father would not save her from the Beadle.

His fingers slipped from her mouth and traveled to her cheeks. With added force, he squeezed her face between his own hands and forced her to look at him.

"Judge Turpin wishes to see you in his study, little birdie." His foul breath ran across her face, but her body remained rigid with frozen fear. "I suggest you behave yourself, my love, your driving the man mad."

Her slender fingers flew to his wrists and grasped them tightly. She tugged with little force as his hands remained clutched to her paling skin.

"But do not entertain the idea that you have weakened _me_, girl."

Johanna writhed within his clutch for freedom. This, though, only irritated the Beadle. With exerted anger, he shook her by the shoulders and jostled her until she was faint, but subdued.

"If you will have learned anything from this, it is that you will never dare speak of our past occurrences, nor will you utter a sound depicting our _future relations," _he hissed, eyes darkened with unspoken threats.

If it was possible, the girl seemed to have paled even more. Her skin, now the color of a glossy, full cast moon, still remained trapped beneath his hands, reddening the areas in which pressure had been applied.

_Future relations…that could only mean…!_

Tears misting her eyes but not quite falling, she whispered, "I won't let you do those…those-those _things _to me…"

As he tore her from the wall and pushed her towards the opened doorway, the man jeered, "I'm afraid that you do not have a say in the matter. You never will."

She would have objected, for her mouth had opened, but the movement could also have been mistaken for a soft cry of mourning that would have escaped if the Beadle had not wrenched her elbow into his hand and began to march her into the ornate hallway. The glance she cast her room was a twisted look, torn between gratefulness to leave her confinements as well as dread towards whatever terrors awaited her in the study.

The man was anything but gentle with Johanna; in fact, he had manhandled her down the hallway without a second thought as she protested through choking snivels. When he shoved her down the stairwell, she stumbled over the hem of her ill-fitted dress. With a groan of indifference, the Beadle jerked her upright and shoved her to the bottom steps, nearly dragging her to the Judge's study so his pathetic desires may be indulged.

Johanna could do nothing more than keep herself from shattering to pieces.

_She may be beaten, she may be touched, felt, or demeaned, but for the love of God, she would not cry. None of those men would ever hold the satisfaction of observing her tears._

Turpin stiffened in his chair as Bamford lightly rapped on the doorframe and tugged Johanna inside. She would have sobbed over his deceitful act of courtesy if she had not promised herself to remain composed.

"Johanna…" he spoke in a high tone, his business tone. It was slightly perplexing how he treated her in such a way, like a client of some sorts when he was not fondling her in the bedroom. His eyes did a full scan of her body within less than a second; a deed that deserved recognition. "You look well, today."

To deter any thoughts of weakness, Johanna replied curtly, "Yes, sir."

Her mind noted the familiar way in which he clutched his fists at her tone. But, still, he remained cool and unfeeling.

_She was just another helpless girl on the defendant's stand, their home was a court room; he did not know this child, he did not care for this child; she meant _nothing_ to him. Oh, why the hell had he brought her before him to begin with?!_

"How are you feeling?" The question was almost an insult, seeing that his tone suggested he did not care if the girl was prepared to hang herself.

For a moment, it appeared she was going to lose herself to the storm of raging emotions within her, but the prevailing will-power graced her with the gift of clear and accurate speech. "I am perfectly fine, sir."

"That is..." a pause, "I am very glad to hear that." Nothing more could be said; the reason he had once held for bringing her before him was futile. "You may leave now," he concluded sharply. Standing to his feet and turning his back to the child, he lightly brushed the bindings of his library books. The action was a distraction from the angelic creature that seared his mind with her hellish enticement.

The girl had made no move to leave since his dismissal. "Sir," she spoke with growing strength, "Tell me about my father." It was, she realized, a moment where not even she held control of her own tongue and would learn to regret her damned lack of proper judgment.

The moment the demand had been spoken Turpin's fingers ceased their senseless caress of the book bindings. He stared hard at the leather straps and dusty shelves as if they were the most important of objects. The only indication that he had heard her was the proceeding question after the icy still.

"Your father," he rasped, cleared his throat, and turned to send the Beadle, who too seemed taken aback by the comment, a desperate glance.

Johanna, straightened with invisible pride, awaited his answer. A flame of defiance kindled her large blue eyes.

After a moment of weighing silence, Turpin spoke in his low, lethal tone; the tone of which he only used when he was sentencing another pretty girl to swing by her neck until dead. "Your father…A loathsome criminal, banished from his own homeland for obstructing the law like the common filth he was." He stepped forward. "A pathetic creature that probably died on the very boat trip to prison if not a few days after arrival…Your father was a bastard, darling, a son of a bitch who deserved every single beating I ordered he receive for the remainder of his life. He is dead, no doubt, rolling in his grave as I now claim what once his."

Johanna was now shaking, but this was not from alarm or dismay, nor was it from grief. Anger boiled from the child as if she were a steaming pot of scorching water. "My father is a good man," she retorted. It was surprising how the antagonism within her did not increase the volume of her voice.

"He's dead, you educationally deprived child! He-is-dead!" the judge roared, suddenly subdued as he plopped into a fancy chair and clasped his coarse hands. "Beadle, please, if you will take the child to her room."

"Yes, my lord. And allow me to take the liberties of_ speaking_ to the girl on the matter of her shameful behavior." A repugnant lie, tainted with false concern; nothing was more insulting than such.

Her head swiveled between the two men, a glint of desperation within her large eyes. "My father isn't dead," she whispered to herself in reassurance, when the question of her father's well-being had begun to take full measure within her panicked mind. What were the chances that he had survived the sentry infested island in a small rowboat? Honestly, who could survive for months in a tiny, defenseless boat against the twisting storms and hungry predators of the sea with little to no rations? The odds were completely against her, ruling in the favor of death rather than her own.

_No, her father had promised he would return to London! She could not give up hope; it was all that she had!_

Without a word, Bamford had grasped the child by her arm once more and began his indifferent march up the stairs and to the girl's room, holding absolutely no intentions of merely talking to her.

But not even the promise of unending torture under the Beadle's hand would diminish the building fright within Johanna as she thought of her beloved father and the horrifying fates he may have met since the tragic day she was ripped from his arms.

**Atlantic Ocean**

Wood splintering his skin, Sweeney Todd's head rolled to the side and stared at the empty space on his strip of wood that had once been occupied by his loyal companion.

For days, Peter had held a firm grip on his arm even in death, and because the wood was laden with the corpse, Todd had realized that he had to pry the boy's fingers from his wrist and push him into the sea where he would claim his own watery grave.

Thinking of doing so was sickening; actually committing the act was a torture all in itself. Sweeney had clutched Peter's fingers and, one by one, had begun to uncurl them from around his wrist. Whilst doing so, he kept his keen gaze averted to the task at hand, avoiding the urge to stare into the dead child's still face and corrupt the images within his mind of the boy while breath was still in his body.

His own fingers ached once he had managed to rip the boy from his skin. Peter's hand now looked like a claw grasping the air with crooked fingers. Miserable, Sweeney Todd shoved the body away from him and towards the edge of the plank. He rolled the boy's head towards him one last time and studied his still features, his face calm and serene for he had died with the name of a beautiful girl pressed upon his lips. Perhaps his death was not as agonizing as it seemed, or at least, Sweeney who have preferred to think so.

"Thank you, son," he whispered gruffly, losing his voice to a sharp wind that carried his words across the barren waters. After he had spoken, his sore hand sent the boy one final push. This time, the body tumbled into the water, sending splashes of salt water to the man's cracked lips and burning eyes. He observed, while swallowing the lump in his sandy, parched throat, as the bloodied corpse of the boy began to sink into the water, slowly at first, then faster as the greedy liquid swallowed what was left of Peter.

Sweeney Todd looked away, exhausted from the task, and collapsed against the wood's surface. A pang of sharp pain pierced his throbbing skull as his head made contact with the wood. Now, he stared outwards towards the horizon, wincing at the light that crushed his mind with its searing intensity. Perhaps he would have felt tears come to his eyes if he had drank water at least once in the past week, maybe he would have said more in honor of the child if he could have summoned the strength after the weeks of malnutrition.

He would join the boy soon, he knew it. There was no escaping death now. The only shame of it was he had come so _bloody_ far, braved his way through impossible obstacles, killed an innocent man, a ruthless man, _himself, _and it was all for naught.

He no longer felt any hunger, which was odd since he had felt so when he was a prisoner on slight rations. When no one had been looking, he would sneak a morsel into his welcoming mouth and nourish his body with accumulating strength. Now, he thought of food with disdain, or did so at least when he remained awake. For days, he had spent all of his time sleeping, but the diminishing voice of reality declared that this was his state of unconsciousness, that he slowly was dying. Yet another reminder of this was his skin had begun to rash and if he rubbed persistently at a single part of his body, the flesh would crumble beneath his fingers.

Men from the Rocks had undergone this type of torture. He had seen it. Their stomachs would swell up, or their bodies would shrink, they would shriek when they swallowed due to the fungi that grew in their throats, or scream at the thought of water, when they held not even the tiniest twinge of energy needed to drink. Eventually, they would become too weak to move their heads, too fatigued to blink an eye. Not even the offer of food would motivate them and days later, Todd, or in this case, Benjamin, would wake to find that particular inmate lying in a crumpled heap, dead.

The only comfort he held, set aside the uplifting thoughts of his own demise, was the sacred images of his family, leaving him thankful that the anguish had not robbed him of the ability to think of his wife and child. Their faces were a blur, though, simply outlines of their golden beauty. Even that was more refreshing than the cool splash of water or the feel of power within his enflamed body.

The thoughts never died, but the days did. The images of his angels never abandoned him, but his stored will-power had. What more could he do but wallow in the glory of his previous life before ending his current, despondent one? Nothing. There was nothing he could do but patiently wait for his body to lay among the countless deceased. Every second that passed was an ounce of strength lost, each lagging minute was a minute morphed into impatience for his death.

It had been days, now, since Peter had been sent to the depths of the ocean, and yet, Todd still lived. He wondered what miraculous part of his body was sustaining life, or what motive he had to continue living. What was his motive? Why was he not dead?

As he shrank away from the sun's burning glare, his skeletal, limp hand absently plopped into the cool water with a tiny splash. He enjoyed the wet sensation that licked his fingers, only to pull his cracked lips into a thin grimace as he realized that he had not the strength to pull his arm back to the surface.

And then, in the midst of his horrendous death, a miracle graced his vision.

A ship, rather large in size, appeared along the horizon. Its graceful sails bellowed in the wind like cotton sheets caught in a cool breeze, its wood shined with a polished glint as if it were gold in the sunlight. Only when Todd strained his ears did he imagine the gruff voices of sailors singing some sort of jovial tune as they mindlessly worked their positions.

Vigor tore through his body, a raging fire that replenished him with blessed power. Of course, it was not enough to gift him with the ability to shout or flail his arms about in order to catch the attention of at least one sailor. But the fragment of strength made his muscles tense with strain as he pulled his dead arm from the water and raised it in the air, towards the home of the nonexistent God.

He reached towards the ship of liberation, whimpering a cry as he grasped the empty, sweltering air.

"Please," he choked, the words infiltrating the blistering constrictions of his throat, "see me."

His mind told him to reach further, to pull through the profound weakness that cursed his body with immobilization and reach towards that ship. Hope was on that ship, he felt it; if he could only grasp it!

"See me," he begged again in a strained whisper. His hand faltered in the air as water droplets dripped from his fingers.

And those imploring words were all he could murmur before a burst of color and then blackness invaded his vision as he relinquished the vitality that had gifted him with movement. It was not the sailors who had spotted him, it was Death. He had reached towards his own demise.

Now, there truly was nothing. No physical pain in his frame as if it were large hands tearing his body in half, no angelic family smiling their inner pleasure, no rhythmic serenades of a sailor's song, no searing painful gasps or beseeching pleads to a ship unknown.

Only Death, wondrous darkness...

_**The Bountiful**_

Anthony Hope breathed in the moist air and smiled at the familiar smell of salt that filled his chest. The day was glorious, the sun like a plate of glistening gold. The waves were calm and clear, the sailors were merry with delight.

A storm had recently passed through, yet the good ship _The Bountiful_ had braved her way through the screaming winds and majestically glided upon the water's glass surface to the very area they were in now. It was strange, for the expression had usually been "the calm before the storm". This, however, was the "calm _after_ the storm".

The men worked their positions with great mirth whilst singing the familiar shanty, "_What Shall We Do with a Drunken Sailor?" _The amusing ring to the lyrics was only an addition to their great joy.

"Oy, Anthony Hope, yeh laggin' about?" The captain of their vessel chuckled with a broad grin as he made his way to the sailor's side and leaned against the ship's railing. He always kept his humor light, never expressing an insult to the boy; perhaps observational criticism, but insult? Never.

Captain Hoyt was always a good man, never once seen without the familiar twinkle in his light eyes. The words passed from his mouth may have been commanding, yet the warmth that he showed each member of his crew was like a father to his son. A loving man, he was, that had placed Anthony upon his ship without a moments hesitance after the boy had beseeched Hoyt to allow him a position upon the ship, claiming he wished to see the world and make himself useful. What Anthony did not realize was the reflection of himself that Hoyt saw within the boy, being that the captain was once youthful too, filled to the brim with anticipation to please his crew and behold the wonders of the world. That was the reason he had allowed the young man a position upon _The Bountiful_; because of his spirit.

Bowing his head to hide the flush of his skin, the Anthony replied, "My apologies, sir." He made a move to leave, but the captain held his arm and gestured towards the wooden railing once more.

"Oh, nothin' to worry about, lad…I was once like yeh, the sea bein' me only love and all. Here, come stand by me."

The men raised their voices as the song began its amusing introduction.

"_What'll we do with a drunken sailor?_

_What'll we do with a drunken sailor?_

_What'll we do with a drunken sailor?_

_Earl-aye in the morning?"_

"I wish to dock at Liberia in a week or two, boy. Yeh think we can meet my mark?" A wind ruffled the kind man's grey hair, nearly robbing him of his hat. Anthony stifled a laugh and gazed out towards the horizon. Hoyt smirked and let a low chuckle rumble from deep within his chest as he adjusted his cap.

"Of course, sir, we are not too far from African soil."

"_Way hay and up she rises  
Patent blocks o' diff'rent sizes,  
Way hay and up she rises  
Earl-aye in the morning"_

"Strange, though, our dear Atlantic seems to be a bit harsher than previous years, don't yeh think. The storms been goin' at it for a while…" Sighing softly, the captain turned his head to study the crew member.

The men's' voice rose as the humor of their lyrics increased.

"_Sling him in the longboat till he's sober._

_Keep him there and make 'im bale 'er._

_Pull out the plug and wet him all over. _

_Take 'im and shake 'im, try to wake 'im._

_Trice him up in a runnin' bowline." _

Anthony gazed upward and admired the sea to silence his thoughts as the captain remained thoughtfully quiet.

"_Give 'im a taste of the bosun's rope-end._

_Give 'im a dose of salt and water. _

_Stick on 'is back a mustard plaster._

_Shave his belly with a rusty razor."_

Then, far out in the distance, a drifting piece of debris caught the boy's attention. It was a pitiful piece of wood, probably a remnant of some sort of ship that had met a watery end. But it was not the actual debris that grasped his attention.

"_Send him up the crow's nest till he falls down._

_Tie him to the taffrail when she's yardarm under._

_Put him in the scuppers with a hose-pipe on him."_

Something lay prone upon the piece of splintered wood. Something…or _someone_.

"_Soak 'im in oil till he sprouts flippers._

_Put him in the guard room till he's sober." _

"My God," Anthony whispered in awe, causing the captain to stare intently at the young man's face.

"_Put him bed with the captain's daughter." _

"What is it, boy?" the older man questioned as he intently studied the side of the boy's face.

The men continued their comical tune.

"_Take the baby and call it Bo'sun." _

Anthony pointed a finger in the direction of the floating remains, squinting in the light as he made out the lifeless shape of a man atop its woodened surface.

"_Turn him over and drive him windward." _

Breathing heavily, the panicked sailor sputtered, "Sir, do you see the floating debris? I think…" he inhaled shakily in order to gain composure whilst in the presence of his captain, "It would appear there is a man upon it."

"_Put him in the scuffs until the horse bites on him."_

After scrutinizing the surface with a keen glance, realization dawned upon the captain as he leaned over the wooden railing. "Bleedin' Christ!" he cursed as he sharply pulled away and hissed a frazzled ranting of biblical curses.

"_Heave him by the leg and with a rung console him." _

Grinning, the men shrieked the conclusion of their song with outstretched arms and obscene comments.

"_That's what we'll do with a drunken sailor!" _

Hope trailed behind the captain as he rushed through the hoards of men, wildly shouting commandments.

"Shut your faces, goddamn it, and ready a longboat!"

There was a stretched silence after Captain Hoyt's outburst, for he usually was a calm man and only shouted when the screaming winds carried away his voice.

"I said ready a longboat!" he shrieked again, spittle flying from his mouth.

As the baffled men scrambled to do as instructed, the captain turned on his heal and grasped Anthony Hope by his sleeve. "Come, boy," he shouted while heaving the sailor to a rowboat readied for dispatch. "See if he's alive and bring 'im back 'ere. Be careful…blighter's probably malnourished." He raised his voice from conversational tone to booming shouts. "I need men to go with Hope! Come on, 'urry it up!"

A small group of sailors stumbled over the side of the ship and into the lowering rowboat. Anthony clambered in behind them, swallowing nervously as he studied the quivering gang planks and the concerned face of his captain. His legs gave way and he collapsed into the seat as he descended to the surface of the water and stared upward at the captain with widened eyes.

"Sir," a sailor cried, "Do yeh think this is a wise choice? I mean, sir, we don't even know who the man is!"

A bump signified that the bottom of their longboat had made contact with the water's surface.

Hoyt stared daggers at the objectionable man. He leaned forward and for a moment, Anthony could have sworn that the captain was about to tumble from the decks and into the frothy waters if he continued to do so.

"Rogers, 'ow does this sound? Save the man's life...AND _THEN_ YOU MAY ASK QUESTIONS!"

Without another word, the men inside of the rowboat grasped the wood of an oar and began to row towards the area in which an unknown man lay upon a piece of decrepit wood.

**Well, Johanna and Sweeney's lives are wonderful, don't you think? Now on a more serious note, I have just checked out my story stats and the results are pretty damn amazing. So many people who I have never even heard of have made this story their favorite or alerted it. The hits are crazy; it's all a really great experience for me. So I ask you all this: everyone who is reading this right now, please leave a review or send me an email just to let me know that you're out there! It really means a lot, I love your support! Thank you all! (And by the way, the song that the sailors sing is really called "What will we do with a drunken sailor?" Just in case you are interested…)**


	24. Chapter 24

A/N: Well, I didn't know that the song I added within the last chapter was so popular! I was surprised to see that many of you reviewers knew it! Props to you, guys! Okay so let me answer a little bit of the comments I got…

Ravencaller: Yeah, I like that "shave his belly with a rusty razor," part too. I did put it in, but the part might have been read over because I was transitioning the whole "Anthony spotting Todd" and "Annoying sailors singing" sequence like a mad woman. But it is in there, I promise you that!

Antlers: I am sorry that I cannot update as quickly as anticipated. My aim for each chapter I write is more than 4,000 words, so I hope you can understand that it does take some time and I wish to have only the best of my work for you guys to read, plus I have a busy schedule to keep. Nonetheless, I will make attempts to update sooner and hope that your interests remain.

Alright, one more review to answer, and everyone, please, please be MATURE about this. (Laughs while typing…)

Booksroc: Okay, the Beadle had not technically "_claimed" _Johanna before prison because of the risk of being caught. (You know how it is if a girl is no longer a virgin…how it can be noticed. If not, then please go to a health website.) But now that's all different because she has been "taken" by Turpin. So now, the judge can have his way with her but he is reluctant, and the Beadle can have his _way _with her because the aftermath will not be noticed…and he's _not _so reluctant.

Sorry for the confusion on _that _particular subject…

So on that note, I would like to thank EVERYONE for their reviews. It was certainly refreshing hearing from some people that I have not heard from before. Thank you all and please keep it up! (And MrsMargeryLovett, I do apologize for the depression. Unfortunately, there is more to undergo…)

**Chapter 24**

**Atlantic Ocean **

Closer, closer the rowboats drew to the floating debris in which an unknown man lay prone upon its surface. The waves made the wood bob up and down, causing Anthony to question why the man had not slipped into the hungry ocean long ago, why his body had not sank to the bottom of the sea and burrowed in its devouring floor of sand.

As they pulled alongside the rubble, Hope cautiously examined the stilled, thin body that clung to the wood though it seemed he was either unconscious or dead. The man's breast did not rise with intake of breath nor did it stir even slightly under the blistering rays of the sun. Surely he was dead; there was no force more powerful in existence than that of the sea's perils.

"Does 'e live, boy?" an aloof sailor questioned whilst leaning over the boat's side to study the body at a closer distance.

Anthony did not burden himself with a reply, for his throbbing head was overwhelmed with unbearable thoughts that allowed no room for excess ideas. Salty air burned his nose, his eyes pinched shut momentarily from the increasing pain of the sun. How strange it was that the elements had never truly irked him until now. It was like his nerves were on edge, the swooshing of the water against his rowboat made him shudder, the low whispers of the sailors made his heart flutter.

_What in the world was happening to him?_

Though his mind protested, a sudden drive within the young man's body caused him to reach outwards toward the prone figure. His fellow sailors protested in concern, but their words were drowned out by the pounding of blood within the boy's ears.

Almost entranced by the mysterious male, Anthony leaned forward in awe as his hand remained raised within the air, traveling forward, slowly, until his fingers hovered over the man's tattered back. The weight of gravity pushed on his hand, like the Fates were forcing him to make contact with the man.

The one glorious thing about being a man of the sea was the phenomenal gift of perception. When one was in peril or faced unknown dangers, the tangible feeling of terror was notable, and because of a simple scruple, the presentiment could very well be used for the sailor's advantage. Anthony had adored this, the sixth sense that seemed to be given to him out of the grace of God, and now, he felt his mind racing with that very sense of forewarning.

Somehow, he knew that this unknown man was going to change his life.

The world stood still, time ceased its rhythmic beat as Anthony Hope lowered his hand to the man's bony shoulder blade and let it rest there. He had chosen this, he had embraced the unknown. Destiny would now take its twisting course, a pathway of anonymity.

As soon as his fingers made contact, black eyes burst open with hot intensity that Hope felt could scorch his flesh with their enflamed glow. The man stared back into the sailor's innocent irises, uncertain, and almost perplexed to see a being before him with such purity in his simple gaze. Anthony would have recoiled from the bursting eyes of the male in order to repel their burn, but he did not.

It must have taken the stranger every ounce of stored strength within his body to gaze upward; perhaps the movements were like puncturing knives to his skull, yet the man still struggled to lift his head, never once breaking their intense gaze.

Anthony would have given anything to break the spell that forced him to gawk into the man's compelling, but ghastly face, though he could not. Surprisingly so, the strange man seemed as if he could not either.

They stayed like that for a few minutes, staring into the other's face, baffled by either the invigorating virtuousness of the boy or the imbedded experience of the man.

Neither of them knew what had caused the trance to break. Maybe it was the wave of nausea that took hold of the stranger or the sudden shouts of shock as he plummeted to the wood's surface in a dead faint, almost plummeting into the water. Then, and only then, Anthony Hope made use of his frozen hands and grasped the tattered shreds of the male's shirt. He heaved with all of his power until several sailors flew to the man as well and began to tug him into the rowboat.

The male's blistering feet sank into the ocean water as they heaved his upper body aboard. Salt water seeped into his deep wounds, stinging him with prickly stabs of pain. At this, a low moan blew from his lips whilst his eyes remained squeezed shut. Men made a grab for his legs, flinging them over the side and into the rowboat, wincing as he gasped at the sharp contact with the boat's floor.

The sailors, inexperienced as they were in such admirable rescues, awkwardly stepped around the huddled heap and took their rowing positions, suddenly silent. The still was strange, though. Only a few moments ago, they were merrily singing their favorite shanty and swaying about as if intoxicated by the grace of the sea.

The stranger's eyes fluttered open, revealing the faint to have passed on. Instead of relief, though, the man curled into a ball and held himself together as if fearing he would shatter if he released his desperate hold. His eyes pressed shut, now slits as his forehead wrinkled with pressure.

The young Anthony Hope could only grasp an oar and avert his eyes to his only comfort, the_ Bountiful_, every so often glimpsing at the crumpled figure of a man. He was curious over him, how he had survived nature's threats with little to no protection.

Mr. Todd, however, was not as controlled. Inhaling in pain, he shielded his screaming eyes from the sun, soothing the agonizing pangs in his head only a little bit. He pressed his head against the bottom of the boat, never breaking his hold, coughing back the strangling whimpers that clawed at his searing throat.

He held not even the smallest inkling as to who the sailors were or the destination and for some compelling reason, Sweeney Todd did not wish to know. He would rather die in ignorance than under the hand of dreaded reality.

Once the boat had been brought beside the great _Bountiful_, Captain Hoyt nearly went mute after his next set of hysterical shrieks. "Dear, God, be gentle with the man! Oh, the lot of yeh…" His words fell away as the boat was tied to the ship's side and hulled upward by a set of burly, but strangely quiet sailors. The captain oversaw all with anxious eyes.

The moment the rowboat had been lifted up to the side of the ship, Hoyt shouted for assistance while the distressed male was hastily tugged to his feet. As Todd was held upright by his arms, his head fell forward until his chin rested upon his broad chest.

The sailors nearly lost their hold as they brought him forward and onto the decks, causing yet another series of distraught commands from their Captain, who had stepped forward and attempted conversation with the stranger.

"Sir, can yeh nod your 'ead if yeh understand me?" He gazed intently into Sweeney's unmoving face.

It was as if the stranger had not heard the words at all, as if he had not heard another man speak for countless years of daunting silence. "London," he gasped, eyes blazing whilst gawking into the space. "I must get to London...I need to find them."

The sailors had stopped, shocked that the man was capable of even the slightest of speech. A few murmurs infiltrated the eerie still. Among them, a sailor cursed, "Well, this bloke's caused a goddamn mood kill."

Hoyt shook his head and placed a hand on the man's arm, gently leading the assisting sailor's forward. The strange man recoiled from the captain's touch, coughing out a plea of leniency.

"Please, sir, yeh need medical attention," Hoyt continued whilst stepping around coils of rope and frequently switching his gaze to the woodened floors before averting his eyes to Sweeney once more.

Like a deaf man, Todd stupidly repeated, "London," before completely slackening, broken by the horrors he had faced.

Darkness.

Anthony Hope, as well as many others, heaved the man upward and rushed below decks where the doctor's cabin awaited them. A single step would be taken and the man would wince within his faint state, like even the smallest of thuds against wood was an impaling stab to his mind.

The world, now a distorted blur, took on a crueler image than Todd had ever experienced. His body was limp as a prisoner after the blistering sting of the whip, he breathed like a man infected with the blazing torture of fever. He was dying, but was he not dead to begin with?

The mob of sailors clambered down the stairwell and through the twists and turns of the labyrinth, or better yet, hallways, until the door of the physician lay before them.

Sailors were not men of gentility. They held no mannerisms of a likeable manner nor did they possess the conscious state of mind that told them when an action was right or completely and undoubtedly incorrect. Such an example would be when the men burst through the doctor's cabin and piled into the small room, their voices joined together in a mad chorus of orders and concerns.

The physician leapt form his cluttered desk and shot a hand up to his face in order to straighten the glasses that had slipped down his nose from the abrupt motion. A lock of moon white hair fell from his disheveled head and into his dark eyes as he gaped at the panicked group of earsplitting men. Even the captain had lost his sense of control somewhere between the stairwell and lower deck's passages.

"Men, please, my patients!" the doctor implored whilst wildly displaying the few sailors that lay in beds by the physician's side. The men had undergone a rather serious case of food poisoning after their recent departure from Chile. After vomiting all rejected food and complaining of burning pain within their stomach, the men had been instantly taken into the doctor's cabin for assistance. This, however, had left no room for any other patients, let alone their unexpected guest.

After minutes of jumbled explanations as to their recent rescue and informative gestures to Todd, the doctor calmly informed them of the lack of space within the room.

As the sailors retorted in frustration, a single voice of reason silenced them all. Anthony Hope.

"The man can stay in my cabin; I don't mind." The boy's eyes glistened with pride as he was assessed by his taken aback crew members. The men had regarded the boy with respect ever since he had stepped foot aboard the_ Bountiful_, he had not bragged of his bravery as the others tended to do. But their respect was only directed towards the humble ways of the young man, not for any other personal traits. They still mocked him every so often for his somewhat clumsy ways and trusting take on the world, silenced only when Captain Hoyt sent them a warning glance. Jealousy towards the captain's favoritism sometimes spread like a plague of which there was no possible cure. Anthony grew accustomed to an intimidating word or two, of which he regarded with a grin or soft chuckle, never, though, had he been subjected to anything more than their petty ridicules. Mostly, Anthony Hope was often considered the crew's younger brother, and if a family member was not mocked every so often by his fellow brothers, then the family was either from a foreign world or deathly ill.

The physician flew around the room, knocking a paper-weight to the floor within the process as he threw random objects into a black bag he had retrieved from the corner of his room. The sailors winced upon seeing some of the materials, memories returning to them of times the tools came into play. Yes, a visit to the ship's doctor was notorious for painful treatments, as if the cause of their agony was not torturous enough. The only bit that some of the men enjoyed when it came to a doctor's visit was the Laudanum, and not even the thick liquor could intoxicate them longer than the burning fire of whiskey.

"Make him drink this," the doctor ordered, handing one of the men his own cup, filled to the brim with water.

The sailors did as instructed, but clumsily so. Most of the cup's contents had trailed down the man's chin and dribbled onto his tattered shirt where it seeped into the dirtied fabric. Had Sweeney Todd been in a conscious state of mind, he would have rejected the liquid with scorn. This was not the case, however, and soon pure, cool water was licking the burns in his throat, ridding his mouth of the course, sandy feeling. The tiniest bit of water had sent liquid energy running down his throat.

A low moan from their rescued unknown sent the sailors rushing to Hope's cabin, losing their hold on Sweeney only once during their frenzied dash to the boy's cabin. They brought him to his feet and continued to drag him down the halls as the physician trailed behind them, dropping various utensils to the ground with a clatter, shrieking, "Lord be merciful, have a care!" and "Do not drop him! Dear God, what is the sense of a rescue if you are going to kill the man afterward? Watch out for the turn! Mind his head, no, _his _head!"

Fed up with the doctor's mindless rants, men swiveled to face the physician, Todd's body swinging dangerously as they did so. "Shut up!" Half of the men bellowed, almost losing their hold on Sweeney Todd yet again.

The physician withdrew his clenched fists, smoothly tucked a strand of hair behind his ear, and pushed his glasses into proper position. "At least," he muttered, glasses slipping due to a thick bead of sweat dripping from his forehead, "Bring the man to Hope's cabin in once piece. I shall not clean up any more mess than I have to." Below his breath, a swift curse carried down the hallway.

Triumphant, the men turned from their opponent and began their wild race past numbered doorways and abrupt corners.

"Oy, Anthony, where's your room, mate?"

A small voice sounded from within the crowd, beside the captain and dangling Sweeney Todd. "Turn the corner here, last door on your right." His voice was light, though as he stared at the limp man, Hope soon felt shivers crawl up his spine.

He stared into the man's ashen face with a twisted frown on his own lips. Mr. Todd seemed to feel the sailor's eyes on him, and in response, he too opened his eyes and furiously returned the gaze. Brow furrowed, the man spoke nothing, yet Anthony could feel the resentment shooting from the man's stares like they were a native's arrow.

So wrapped within gaze of the man as well as his own, the boy did not realize he had passed his cabin until the men began to relentlessly shout at him.

"Hope, 'ave yeh lost your mind?"

Anthony sighed in frustration and swiveled around, facing the men and rushing forward to the group that clustered around his cabin's door. They pushed it open and clambered inside.

Todd hissed his displeasure as he was literally thrown upon the only pallet within the room. He clawed at the sheets, grasped a fistful of the material, and pulled it to his face. His chest shook, his throat was screaming; his breathing had been reduced to futile gasps, his eyes burned. Frantically, he pulled the handful of material over his eyes and blinded himself with their blissful, foreign embrace.

"My God," Hoyt whispered, eyes widened. The moment of vulnerability was banned quickly. The group as a unity gaped in shock as their captain turned to them and pointed towards the opened doorway. "Each and every one of yeh, get the 'ell out of 'ere and back to your posts! Come now, doctor." Hoyt motioned for the physician to step forward as the crew members let out a series of colorful words that depicted their true displeasure towards the captain's dismissive manner.

Anthony moved to exit as well, stopping when his captain snapped a hand towards his sleeve and held him in place. "No, boy, yeh stay 'ere. Your cabin, yeh see," he pointed out with a light grin, which soon faded to a morbid grimace. He was worried.

The door slammed shut, leaving only Anthony, Captain Hoyt, the doctor, and the tormented man in each other's company.

"Doctor, if yeh will…" Hoyt gestured forward and stepped beside the cot. "Anthony, draw the curtains a bit; the man's eyes are goin' to pop out of 'is skull if there is too much light."

The sailor did as instructed. The room was shadowed with a thin blanket of darkness so that sight was not obstructed but light was not completely welcomed. A translucent setting.

"Come now, sir," Hoyt spoke softly. The sound was almost perplexing to the boy who had heard only a gruff voice from the captain. "Yeh must look at me. It's dark, sir, it won't 'urt a bit."

"He cannot hear you," the doctor observed, "He is in a weakened state. One usually slips from consciousness into unconsciousness repeatedly as a natural system of self-defense until-"

A muffled voice snapped, "I am not unconscious, I can hear everything you say."

The physician blinked a few times then furrowed his brow as he studied the covered face of his patient. "Ah, well, then you should have no trouble uncovering your face and allowing us to study you."

Anthony suppressed laughter upon observing the doctor irritable because of a severally deprived, helpless male.

Dead eyes popped out from nowhere, then a face; a scowling, pale face.

The physician stared, dumbfounded by the man's ghastly appearance as he fully assessed him. It seemed he was observably thankful for the darkened room, possibly because it assisted in obscuring the man's demented features.

To this, Sweeney returned the stare with an unwelcoming glare.

"Will, er," the doctor stammered, "will you allow me to observe your injuries, sir?" He shifted uncomfortably and clutched the handles of his bag with an even tighter grip, his knuckles white as the froth of the sea. They looked like the hands of a corpse compared to the velvet black shade of his medical bag. "At least tell us your name…"

"No."

Hoyt laughed warmly and stepped forward, his smile slightly forced. "Come now, man, yeh 'ave been stranded for God knows 'ow long with nothing more than the clothes upon your back and a piece o' splintered wood. Surely yeh need assistance." He reached outward, but Todd surprisingly retreated from the man's outstretched hand and curled against the wall the cot was pushed against. He slumped from the excretion of energy.

"Don't touch me," he growled. Even Anthony could feel the desperation beneath the man's harsh words. Like a captured animal, he stared hard into the face of the captain as if he were his cruel captor, as if he wished to strangle the man until Hoyt's blood dripped through his fingers.

This man had been through hell.

Control seized Anthony like an inevitable force that once again felt like Fate working in its mysterious ways. "Sir," the boy began timidly, "you really must be inspected. I do not wish for you to die after the lengths we went to in order for you to be successfully rescued." With each word, each syllable, he took the slightest of steps towards the defensive man just as he had done with an untamed horse in India only a few years ago.

"You," Todd whispered with narrowed eyes, "you are the boy that first dragged me aboard the rowboat…" The man paused in respectful silence, switched his glance towards the floor, and then into the face of Anthony Hope. He appeared to have been in deep deliberation over a specific matter, of what, though, would forever be unexplained.

Anthony swallowed hard. "Sir, I beseech you."

The gentle pitch of the boy's words sent whistles screaming in Mr. Todd's head. No man had ever spoken to him in such a personal manner, as if he were worthy of life rather than a piece of street filth. For years, Sweeney Todd had not been begged to do anything, save the small pleas his daughter sent him before she had left him, before she was stolen from her rightful father…

A year had passed by in a moment before the male spoke swiftly, a broken, dejected voice. "Fine." He slipped from his defensive position and lay on his back, blinking in order to fight the battle between stability and sleep. _The simplest of actions exhausted him!_

Hope smiled in return and turned towards the physician, whose mouth had remained open in wordless surprise.

Gaining control, the doctor stepped forward. "Yes, thank you, lad," he mumbled whilst producing a canister from his bag, filled with water. "Now, you must drink."

Sweeney closed his eyes tightly as nausea rippled through him in shuddering waves. Holding himself within a tight embrace was only momentarily helpful, but as the physician began to pry his arms away from his body, Todd feebly struggled until he lay still, breathing heavily.

"Even if I have to force this down your throat, I swear you are going to drink it," the man spat as he held the canister before Sweeney's distrusting eyes.

"Doctor, please don't be vexed," Anthony objected as he firmly stood by the man's side.

"It won't stay down," Sweeney rasped as he was brought to a sitting position. The doctor held the man's head in his hands and tilted his mouth backwards.

"Drink it."

Without saying anything, Sweeney Todd allowed the man to tilt the nozzle of the canister forward and opened his mouth to receive the cool liquid in his mouth. His throat devoured the water, soothing the burns in his body, dousing the flame in his chest. But his stomach rejected it all.

Todd cursed quietly as his empty stomach churned with the newly added water. Soon, the liquid was sent rushing back into his mouth and over the bed sheets. After he had finished vomiting, the physician frowned deeply and lay the man back down.

"He is suffering from severe malnutrition," the medical doctor explained. "Do not feed this man anything in large quantities. Give him small, light meals, soup for example, and gradually increase in the amount he receives over time."

"Small amounts? Sir, he is starved!" Anthony exclaimed.

The physician brought an herbal remedy from his bag and began to rub a thick substance over Todd's unmoving face, over the burns on his skin. "If you feed him too much, he will become violently ill and die. His stomach has shrunken over time and cannot except such large rations." He buried the medicine in the bag. "It appears he has fallen into an unconscious state once more. Anthony, since this is your cabin, I suggest you ensure that he receives water, but not too much of it, or he will be sick just as he was earlier. When he awakens, explain to him all that I have told you and inform me if anything should occur. If not, I will, nonetheless, make daily visits, should his conditions remain the same or worsen." He placed the canister on a stand beside the pallet. "Unfortunately, he will never truly be able to eat regularly again."

It was true, the man's eyes were lightly shut and he lay still upon the dampened sheets. Anthony shook his head and questioned miserably, "What should I do now, sir?"

Hoyt, who had remained unusually silent, patted his companions shoulder. "Let 'im rest, boy. We'll discuss this matter further when the man is stable. Be good to 'im, now."

And with that, the captain and physician left the boy alone with an unknown man, a canister of water, and a mind bursting with questions.

A voice pierced the air. "You don't have to do anything for me, boy."

Anthony whirled his head to study the man, but the male's eyes remained closed. Dear Lord, was he now hearing voices?

"Sir, are you awake?"

Lids still closed, Sweeney slowly nodded his head. "I didn't want that bloke forcing water down me throat again."

"So you pretended in order to fool the physician?"

Silence and then, "Yes."

"Did your stomach reject the water or was the vomiting a trick as well?"

Todd opened his eyes and ran them hurriedly over the boy. "Yes, it was a trick…I don't trust him."

Anthony grimaced. "Do you trust me at least?"

Again, silence, only, minutes later, it was interrupted by Sweeney's soft, bitter laughter. "Well, I suppose I have to, don't I?"

"Good," Anthony smiled, "then you will tell me your name?"

The distance between the man's brows narrowed. "My name?" he repeated stupidly.

"Yes," the sailor grasped the water canteen, "your name." To encourage the man answer his question, Anthony set an example. "My name, sir, is Anthony Hope." He handed the canister to Todd, who tentatively grasped it.

"Hope?" he echoed. A cherished, small smile spread on the male's face as if he had not smiled in years. Anthony swam in the faint glow that emitted from the man's bliss. "That is a very well suited name for you, Anthony."

Words of familiarity rang back into Todd's head, a faint, clouded memory.

_Hope was on that ship._

_Hope._

After staring hard at the canister, Sweeney guzzled deeply at the liquid and quenched his flourishing thirst. He did not have to pretend in front of this boy.

Once he was through, he clasped the canister tightly and intently studied the dark blonde haired boy, who in return, bashfully looked away. The young sailor was innocent, he observed, a child of the world. And who had he known that related to this boy in such a way other than the child of the world that he had cast into the sea only days ago? "You remind me of someone," the male whispered, eyes blazing.

Anthony glanced upward. "I do? May I ask who?"

_Peter._

Sighing, the man replied lowly, "Someone I truly wish to forget." He regretted the statement, but buried his thoughts of remorse by reaching over to the side table and placing his canister on the wood. His fingers trailed across a cool object, smooth like the water he had been cast upon for weeks. Once he leaned to the side, with great difficulty, to identify the object, he soon realized it was a mirror.

Without speaking, he lifted the small mirror by its handle and mentally prepared himself before gazing into his own reflection; an animal stared back at him, a demon with sunken, dead eyes, a head of wild and streaked hair, and hallowed cheeks form starvation. This was the ghost of who had once been. This was the moment in which Benjamin Barker had truly died, the innocence of who he was, banned like a criminal hidden from the world.

"My name is Sweeney Todd."


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter 25**

**London, England**

"Where is my ward?" Turpin questioned as he slipped inside of his home and was stiffly welcomed by his maid.

The woman clasped her hands, frowned, and replied coolly, "She was not feeling well, so I allowed her to sit in the library…"

Shaking his head, the judge massaged his large hands and quietly spoke, "She shouldn't be there."

Irritated, the maid retorted, "The Beadle is right with her, he won't let her out of his sight."

A pang of jealousy, a sigh of agitation, and the judge was imagining strangling the life out of his maid.

Without another word, Turpin swung from the room and began to prowl the ornate hallways. After strutting forward and swiveling to face the hall's lavishly decorated walkway, Turpin sighed deeply and, summoning more courage than willpower, advanced towards _the library _door.

Silent as the hand of death itself, he pulled the door open and ran his eyes over the explicit pictures of intercourse plastered to the walls. He then averted his intent gaze to the occupants of the room, nodding slightly towards the Beadle, who was positioned in the corner, comfortably slouched. The man grinned coyly and gestured with his hand towards the library's seat window. There, Turpin gazed at the slumped figure of his Johanna, her petite body curled in a welcoming position.

He swallowed thickly and cleared his throat, but none of these actions seemed to slow the furious beating of his heart, the cool beads of sweat that had begun to drip down head.

Tenderly, like a common gentleman, Turpin rapped on the door's frame and waited for the blonde head to twist towards him and beckon him inside with a smile of affection, or at least a word of acknowledgement.

She said nothing.

Patience slipped from him as easily as water through his fingers. He stepped inside, half surprised to see Johanna turn to him slowly, half pleased that she did not fear him as he had imagined he would.

He then noticed the tears that pooled within her eyes, the almost natural way in which her body recoiled from him and harshly slammed into the wood behind her.

"Hello," Turpin offered lightly.

She nodded jerkily, as if afraid that a wrong word would lead to punishment.

"You've kept the curtains closed," he observed, slightly glad that she did not put her misery on display for all of London to see.

"Yes," she squeaked, her blue eyes shooting to the Beadle quickly before racing to the comfort of the wooden floors.

Another breath, a steady step; even Turpin had to admit, he was clutching onto his control rather well.

"Well, if you are in the library, should not you be reading a book?" he suggested lightly while turning toward the rows of displayed books. Upon instinct, his eyes strained to observe the various volumes of pornography he had stored on the shelves. The oily illustrations were delightful, depicting the erotic pleasures one would receive through such behaviors, all on a piece of crisp paper.

Instead, his hand brushed the binding of a book that consisted of songs and hymns.

Turning to Johanna, he went to question the girl on his selection, but stopped.

Her eyes, widened with horror, stared at the face of Beadle Bamford as she clasped her hands tightly. The Beadle caught notice of the Judge's stares and pretended innocence as he turned to his superior and smiled with sickening sweetness. The Judge stared from Beadle's face to that of his Johanna's, and for the first time, he did not study her petite figure, her chaste lips, or her hair the glorious color of shining gold. This time, he studied _her_.

Johanna's eyes, red rimmed and swollen, stared back at him. She held a profound amount of alarm in her tired irises; her face had gone from a tempting tan color to a pasty, pale complexion. Around her beautiful eyes, the eyes that he had worshiped for years, dark shadows had begun to form. Was he the cause of this?

Her face was a condemnation all in itself.

"Beadle, leave us."

The portly man stood, spine straight and rigid. "Of course, sir," he hissed with smothered antagonism as he turned from the pair and exited the room. The door would have slammed shut if the Beadle had not slowed his arm's movements. With forced gentility, the door clicked closed.

The girl's gaze flicked to Turpin's, immediately falling away from him and shutting tightly as his footsteps sounded with each step.

He assessed her fear as well as his own actions before quietly inquiring, "May I sit with you?"

She gawked at him. _Was he actually asking for her permission? What would he do to her if she refused?_

"Yes, sir," she obliged as she receded into the farthest corner of the seat and waited, biting back her terror as he sat beside her and leisurely opened the book of literature collections.

"Woodman, Spare That Tree," he selected after squinting at the lyrics he had chosen.

Curious, Johanna leaned forward ever so slightly and stared at the opened book on her guardian's lap.

Turpin turned his head to study her hesitance and as a form of encouragement, he pointed towards the words. "It is about a man, you see, who wishes to save a tree from destruction for it holds many cherished memories of his youth."

_Cherished, youthful memories…_

She inched towards him, but made certain that there remained a space between the two. Silently, she read over the lyrics and let a bouncing melody compose within her mind. She always loved that, singing songs in her mind…

"_Woodman, spare that tree!_

_Touch not a single bough!_

_In youth it sheltered me,_

_And I'll protect it now._

_'Twas my forefather's hand_

_That placed it near his cot:_

_There, woodman, let it stand,_

_Thy axe shall harm it not!"_

A small, divine smile spread over her lips, though her brow remained scrunched.

For a while, the two sat there, reading humorous poems or melancholy tunes of lost lovers. Turpin would occasionally spare her a grin, eyes dancing as she giggled at the comic selections. She had laughed in delight at the jokes imbedded within the harmonies; her laughter was like the calm chiming of heaven's bells.

This was how it should be.

The page crinkled as it turned. The next selection was a written tune, however Turpin had told her that the words had been written, but a melody had yet to be chosen and written for the general public. "More of a poem," he had said.

The title, she read, was "Throw out the life-line." So entranced was she by the written word, that she had yet to notice how close she sat next to her guardian. The heat that radiated from his body had yet to grasp her attention. She devoured the words with her eyes.

"_Throw out the lifeline! Throw out the lifeline!_

_Someone is drifting away;_

_Throw out the lifeline! Throw out the lifeline!_

_Someone is sinking today._

_Throw out the lifeline with hand quick and strong:_

_Why do you tarry, why linger so long?_

_See! He is sinking; oh, hasten today_

_And out with the life boat! Away, then, away!_

_Throw out the lifeline to danger-fraught men,_

_Sinking in anguish where you've never been;_

_Winds of temptation and billows of woe_

_Will soon hurl them out where the dark waters flow."_

A sinister, foreboding premonition had Johanna breathing quickly until she could not gather the ability to think properly. She clutched at her throat and felt the air tearing through her windpipe. _Why had the words held such a connection to her? Why would a song about sailors rescuing a lone man irk her so?_

A hand fell upon her shoulder. "Johanna? What is wrong?"

The girl faced Turpin, her expressions contorted with torment. She stared, for a moment, at the hand on her shoulder, a mix of scorn and sorrow visibly battling in her emotion filled eyes. "I think…that…"

He silenced her with a shake of his head. "If you are not well then you must let me know. I will seek medical attention of you have taken ill."

His concern seemed to pluck at the very strings of her control. She was torn, brutally twisted between the man that had viciously…_hurt_ her in the enclosed space of her bedroom and then held the passion of a father as she sat beside him, seeking the love that every daughter yearned for.

Their eyes met as he grasped her chin within his fingers and stared coolly into her eyes. He said absolutely nothing, and yet, he did not have to say anything. All of the sensations ran through his gaze and into her own eyes, feeding the fire of conflict in her mind.

Once upon a time, she would have caressed that face and placed a wet kiss on his cheek as he held her to him, chest rumbling form his deep chuckles. But now…What did her heart hold for this man other than fear? Could terror possibly turn into respect, into love?

"My lord, there is an official to see you on your current case," Bamford informed as he poked his head inside.

Turpin, with great difficulty, stood and stared down at his ward. In return, she uncertainly gazed up at him and burdened him with the roaring emotions that burst from her blue eyes. The pain, the grief, the horror…the masked adoration...

One look into her eyes and he was finished. Bending forward, he brought his lips to the crown of her head. To his shock, she had not pulled away but leaned forward. He kissed her with the undying sentiment of a father, a protector. Beneath his head, she faced his brood chest and parted her lips as tears slipped down her cheeks.

"I love you," he whispered into her hair.

And then he was gone. With nothing more than a soft kiss and a parting word of reverence, he had glided from the room, leaving her alone with a silly book as her company.

She leafed through the pages, eyes barely skimming the imprinted words until one title did manage to catch her interest.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning had been a growing storm of controversy in London, for there were not many women poets accepted into society with the title of excellence proudly bestowed upon them. The thought of a female conquering the world of criticizing men and successfully making her career without lifting a hand, but rather her mind, was invigorating to Johanna. Smiling in awe, she began to read the excerpts from the woman's first book, the lengthy poem, _Aurora Leigh_.

Within the first few lines, Johanna already felt tears misting in her eyes once more at the mention of Aurora's mother and her tragic death whilst Aurora was but a young child living in Italy. Aurora could feel no grief for the death of her mother due to the fact that she was simply too young to understand the concept of bereavement, and yet, the child still felt a void in her life afterward.

Curious, Johanna thought to herself;_ a child who had lost her mother at a young age but had not ability to mourn the loss because of childish ignorance_.

Johanna's throat went dry; she swallowed thickly and read on. Outside, the growing voice of a beggar woman shrilled her desperation to the slumbering city of London.

The next few excerpts described Aurora alone with her father, a prominent English man who cherished her above all others. Their love was beautiful, almost too glorious to be accepted as true. When Aurora was an older child, her father had died a tragic death with his daughter's name pressed upon his lips. Aurora was left alone, holding no other option than to be torn from the home of her father and to the strange land of England. She felt nothing; her mind was stripped of thought from the loss of losing her world, her father.

Like the fictional Aurora, Johanna was robbed of thought. All that was left was the engulfing sorrow and the same daunting book in her lap, the consistent memories that she had strived to bury if she had any desire to keep her heart from shattering.

Tears may have blurred her vision, but she did not give them permission to fall. Persistent, she read on.

Only upon Aurora's arrival could she grieve the loss of her father, only when she heard the strangers around her conversing in the English language; the language in which her father spoke to her in Italy, a brief but mournful reminder of the life she had once had. The words that were once overflowing with feeling from the mouth of her father were now the words of aliens, of nonentities, cold, heartless individuals.

"_And when I heard my father's language first_

_From alien lips which had no kiss for mine, _

_I wept aloud, then laughed, then wept, then wept, — _

_And some one near me said the child was mad_

_Through much sea-sickness"_

And with the conclusion of that passage, Johanna's resistance had crumpled to ruins. She was broken.

Clutching the book to her breast, she wept bitter tears that she had choked back for what seemed her entire life. The salty water splashed onto the book and blotted the ink. The words were now distorted, undecipherable even to her.

She was no longer a child, she wept with the anguish of an elderly woman, bitter and alone. Long ago, she had once held the pleasure of holding the last of her family to her, savoring his touch and the compassion that was as foreign as the desert air or the streaming, Australian sun. And then he was gone, like a piece of heaven offered to her before the cold recesses of her past wrenched her back into its pit of horrors.

She had no mother; she no longer had a father. Even if he lived, it was as he had once said, they would never be reunited. Even if the hands of Fate permitted his survival, they would turn from her. It was as if Turpin was an exception, as if he ruled higher than the so-called "devout" forces of justice and truth.

The world bowed to the Judge of Corruptness and succumbed to the immorality of which he practiced.

The sliver of love she had held for her guardian was now banned from her soul like the purging of an infection. _Had she truly believed the tainted words of affection he had spoken after the countless acts of defiling tortures?_ _Her _true_ father had never done such repulsive things; he had shielded her from them!_

"Alms!" the beggar cried from outside of the house. Johanna strained her ears to mute the sound, but not even her vain efforts could silence the dejected voice that rang through the streets.

London could crumble around her into a pile of rubble and she would still remain there, book in hand, tears of loathing and bereavement dripping from her dimmed eyes.

With cries still resounding throughout the room, she held the book in a tighter grip and remained in the same position until the sobs had worn her through. She slept like that, jumping awake when the door to the library had closed shut.

She only realized that someone had been inside the room when she noticed the absence of her book and the blanket wrapped around her slight figure. Curling into the soft material, she shut her swollen eyes shut and welcomed each and every shrill note that slipped from the outside beggar woman's lips.

Within the darkness, beneath the harsh tone of the beggar's song, Johanna detected that the woman's voice had once been soft and gentle, a familiar, feminine…motherly sound.

And suddenly, a raspy cry for alms at the darkest hour became the most precious of lullabies.

_**The Bountiful**_

Anthony Hope had never been a boy of attachment; it was not the way of a sailor. Towns and people would be but a memory once a ship had left its harbor and the only attachment a man would ever dream to feel was that of his soul to the sea.

This was no longer the case.

Sweeney Todd, a mere stranger that had barely muttered anything more than a word of acknowledgment when spoken to, had the boy by his side each and every moment that time permitted him a chance of relaxation from his duties. Perhaps it was the strange man's silence that had the sailor by his cot, eagerly waiting for an opportunity to speak of the man's past. He had spent days in this fashion, like a trained dog by the side of an indifferent owner.

At night, Anthony had insisted that his guest take the bed so that he may obtain proper rest. He assured Mr. Todd that he would sleep in the small armchair in the corner because a sailor was "trained to do so" and "easily slept in the worst of conditions".

After a series of suffocating stares, the young sailor would take the cot and Todd the armchair, his body rigid and tensed, never once relaxing. The boy soon learned that a disagreement with Sweeney Todd was like battling an uncontrolled storm: a mere mortal could never triumph, let alone a sailor boy.

The physician had remained true to his word and returned for Todd's inspections. The man had cured Sweeney of his burned skin, cut up feet, and, after noticing the long, infected gash in his arm, had cleansed and dressed the wound.

He failed to mention that the wound had been inflicted in a dark, African town after he had been fleeing from a group of enraged guards, intent on seeing his body amongst the piles of his unidentified comrades. Perhaps it would be best if he left that _minor_ detail out.

Surprisingly, Sweeney Todd had made a miraculous recovery from his severe state of malnutrition, or at least, he had not died like many had predicted. Anthony Hope had even been informed of a wager below the decks, mainly focusing on the fate of the unknown stranger. Apparently, many had bet that Mr. Todd would be dead before the day was out, a bet which was later moved up to "dead before the week is out". Many men would be bitter over the loss of money in their pockets.

Just as the doctor had said, though, the man's eating patterns were mostly, if not completely, altered. Never again would he be able to down a meal without becoming violently sick, due to his dangerously shrunken stomach. Let alone the fact that meager morsels were acceptable; Sweeney hardly ever welcomed a piece of food into his mouth. He felt no hunger; his raw, vindictive emotions seemed to devour the desire to fill his stomach.

When he was stable enough, the captain confronted their newest guest. Sweeney Todd had managed to conjure up a bogus story of him being a man upon a boat of merchant traders from London. He made deep efforts to hide the smirk that crept to his face as he informed Hoyt that his ship had sunk off the coast of South Africa due to a violent storm. To ensure his act was successful, the man went as far as adding quickened breaths and stuttered words, like his charade was indeed authentic and terrifying beyond imagination.

It was not that the simplicity of it all that pleasured Todd in the end; it was the fact that they all had believed every single word he had spoken.

When asked if there any other possible survivors, he had replied, "No," after a very long and solemn pause. The Captain had continued to interrogate him on the names of his crew members and his merchant ship, as well as stops along the way and such, all to which Sweeney had retorted that he "simply could not remember".

The physician had agreed that his failure to recollect was due to his malnutrition.

After the intense interrogation, the physician had departed to treat to his food poisoning patients and Anthony Hope had returned, fatigued and worn from his working period. It was almost humorous: watching grown men stupidly believe a sham that he had conjured up in his frazzled mind within a minute.

Disgruntled, the ex-con leaned by the cabin window and observed the splashing waters and shining sunlight. _He had always hated the sunlight, how it ruthlessly pealed his skin, burned his vision…but that was after he was taken from his home, from his wife and…_

"Sir," Hoyt began, grinning as he placed himself to the side of Todd, "Yeh said yeh wished to go to London, did yeh?"

The man's dark eyes studied the captain with distain, even distrust, before the flame of spite in his irises was doused. "Yes, sir," he agreed coolly, eyes flicking to Anthony Hope, who had remained impassive beside his captain.

The boy smiled in return. Sweeney Todd's eyes shot away from him, like a child caught in the wrong.

"Well, you're in luck, Mr. Todd…Your name _is_ Todd, I am right?" Hoyt raised a thick brow.

"Sweeney Todd."

"Ah, yes. Pardon me, sir, but the name is quite unusual…"

The responding silence was ominous, daring the captain to continue his speech.

In a rich, Cockney accent, the captain continued. "London," a thoughtful pause, "You're in luck, sir. Our final destination is to be London; in fact, we're 'eading there now!"

Quiet, Sweeney burned the air with his unfaltering gaze and croaked, "How long?"

"Of course we 'ave to make a few docks on the way before we reach the city…"

The fire returned. "How long?" Todd repeated in a forceful, irate tone.

A frown creased Hoyt's face. "I can't say for sure, Mr. Todd. A month or two at the very most, I suppose."

Anthony curiously studied his head crew member, realizing something he had not seen before. For the first time, the captain seemed uncomfortable in the presence of another. A captain always maintained stability even in the most horrendous of situations! But now, his own captain was shifting uncomfortable under the pressure of another man's stares. One side of Hope's mind sent signals to him, stating that Mr. Todd was obviously dangerous and should be treated as a possible threat. The other side simply marveled at the man and his mysterious ways.

"Now, we also 'ave to discuss your payment for passage, if yeh can. My apologies, Mr. Todd, sir, but I can't be simply cartin' yeh around the world without some sort of fee." A small, regretful smile spread to his face; a disarming smile, a _nervous _smile.

Todd, gnashing his teeth together, tore his mind for possibilities of payment. "I could work," he suggested. He had not turned to face any of them.

"Nonsense," Anthony objected lightly, "Mr. Todd, I cannot allow you to work after, and pardon me, sir, your horrid illness that easily could have claimed your life. _I_ will work extra hours in order to pay for Mr. Todd's voyage." Proud, he stared back into the eyes of his captain, though he did not receive the preferred expression that he had hoped for. Instead, Captain Hoyt seemed to study him with nothing short of panic.

What was wrong?

Sweeney gruffly objected. "No, I will work."

"Mr. Todd, please, I spotted you that day out on the ocean. To deny me the responsibility of assisting you in your time of need would be….please, Mr. Todd."

This time, the man studied the sailor with an intensity that forced Anthony to stare at his folded hands rather than his invigorating glare.

The man's silence was his surrender.

Hoyt sighed, "Very well, Anthony. You will work extra time to pay for Mr. Todd's passage." An inflection crept into his voice. "But I will not 'ear of anything more than a few extra hours in the nest, yeh 'ear me? Only a few more hours, that is all!"

"Yes, sir."

Sweeney darkly studied the outside world, infuriated that the boy had muted him with his pleading eyes and hopeful expression. _A young man, no, a child had the power to weaken him like the idiotic fool that he was. And now, he had to sit back as that same child worked for his right to sail the sea as if he were a cripple incapable of such labor. He had worked the bloody desert for fifteen years, damn it!_

"Yeh 'ave any family back home, Mr. Todd?"

The question had robbed Todd of thought, of sight. All that remained was pain, so much anguish that came crashing into his chest at the utterance of a simple word: Family.

In a deep, breathy voice, he rasped, "Yes."

Did he, though? Could he say for certain that his wife and daughter were still living? He had seen the despair in his daughter's eyes; he knew that her life was almost too fragile to suffer anymore than she already had. What of his wife? Did his daughter not hint that Lucy may have taken her life to escape the horrors that he had yet to know?

But the truth, as it usually had, remained unchanged. If his wife and child were lying, dead in the ground, he would still have a family; a deceased family, but, nonetheless, a family.

"Ah, yeh do, do yeh? A wife…a son, perhaps?"

"No, a wife and-" he paused, cleared his throat, and wiped at his eyes. They were beginning to burn, "A daughter."

Hoyt leaned in as Anthony merrily listened in the back. For some strange reason, the thought of a strange man, such as Mr. Todd, having a family was almost perplexing.

"I take it they were beauties. How old is your girl?" A deep grin spread the captain's lips.

"Sixteen." The moist heartbreak within his voice was shrill against Anthony's ears. What had happened to this man?

"Oh, a small, blushing rose by the sound of it."

Instinctively, Sweeney Todd placed the pads of his fingers on the window's glass. The sunlight sent warm shiver down his spine, the cabin faded away.

He stood before his Johanna now.

She did not speak, yet her lips spread with a glorious smile that made his heart throb. Her blonde hair billowed behind her as she approached him, her blue eyes danced with the golden rays that caressed her skin. This was the first time he had seen her. The first time she had walked into his barrack, displaying virtue that the deprived convicts had not seen for years, possibly their entire lives.

He felt her nestled in his arms, pressing her face into his shoulder as she always did. He stroked her silken tresses and stroked her soft cheek as he always did. The small body vibrated with laughter, soundless giggles of bliss.

He would give anything to feel his angel locked in his embrace, to hear the sounds of her breathing when she slept or the ringing of her entrancing giggles. These small comforts, that most took for granted, were his lone source of sanctuary. Only a father could feel these comforts or the taught bond that kept him tied to his child whether she was near him or across the oceans in a distant land.

He may have forgotten Lucy's face, but never would he forget Johanna's.

"Mr. Todd, can you hear me?"

The sound of the young sailor's voice had shattered his world. The sunshine fell away, the breeze, the joy. His daughter backed away from him, bruised and bloodied. Those same blue eyes were darkened from nights of unending terror; she was paler than the skin of a dead man. This was the result of the truth he did not know, the fate that Johanna had refused to tell him of.

She was dead.

_He_ had killed her.

"Mr. Todd!"

Whirling to face the boy, wiping his face with his sleeve, the man demanded, "What do you want?!"

The boy was taken aback. "I am sorry; you were shaking…I did not know if you were alright…"

As he gnawed on his lip, Sweeney mumbled, "I need to be alone…right now." His tight grimace wavered and for a moment, it appeared as if he were about to sob.

"Yes, of course," Hoyt agreed as he pulled the sailor from the room.

Before the door could shut behind them, Anthony managed to glimpse at Todd. The man stood beside his cot, staring intently at the mattress as if he thought that someone rested within its soft material.

**Did you catch all that symbolism? Wow…anyway, please review! Thank you everyone!**


	26. Chapter 26

**Chapter 26**

**London, England**

"Alms on a woeful morn," the beggar woman shrieked, her thin voice cracking with raspy coughs. As she pressed a filthy a hand to her mouth, she hacked miserably until pulling her fingers away and inspecting the bright beads of blood that adorned her knuckles. With the material of her sleeve, she wiped furiously at the blood trickling form her mouth and staggered down the paved roads. If she occupied her thoughts with worries of where she would slumber for the night, the fire in her chest and throat may die away. But it would always return.

The woman approached the great Judge's home and stared hard at the curtained windows. For years she had watched those windows, screaming her ultimate terror at the very sight of a Beadle or a Judge, singing softly when she caught sight of the blonde ward that resided within the stone walls of her prison. The blonde songbird had always been a beacon of golden light when her lips parted with a serenade, her buried memories resurfaced when the melody took flight into the thick London air.

For years, the beggar had watched over the golden cherub, basking in the glow she emitted from the shadows of the walkways. The girl's blue eyes never failed to bring a smile to the beggar's face.

She had not seen the blonde head for a year now.

Perhaps if she sang another lullaby she would see the little blonde girl and relish the fuzzy visions of obscured faces and riveting laughter that infiltrated her thoughts at the sight of the child. Maybe the little girl would bring forth the images that were her only consolations on the streets, infested with stalking criminals and bold prostitutes. That little Johanna was a silent angel on those streets. Yes, another beg for alms would awaken the angel, she had to see that little blonde head again.

"A miserable woman, a miserable day; spare a coin, gents!" the beggar cried, arms outstretched, waiting...waiting.

Form within the prison the woman so devoutly encircled, the blonde angel rested within the hellish confinements of the obscene library with solitude as her enveloping company.

She had not read after the brief skimming of poems with her guardian. On several occasions, Turpin had suggested that they do so again, yet she rejected the idea quickly, as if she rejected something far worse than the reading of an innocent hymn. In her mind, she had.

To her complete shock, the Judge had given her small freedoms around the house when he was working the bench at the Old Bailey. No longer did she remain locked in her room, now she was permitted access to the library and dining room. Of course, the maids' eyes remained locked on her and the Beale rarely left her sight after a day at court, yet small freedoms were better, she supposed, than none.

Hands in her lap, Johanna sat in the dim room and closed her eyes. Sleep had not come to her for so long; her eyes were sore and often watered, though she rarely cried.

Crying never solved anything, anyway.

Memories remained bound to the back of her mind and, surprisingly, had not penetrated her thoughts for quite some time. The numbness that allowed her to forget was merciful. Johanna wished to never remember what was once hers again, for dreaming of what once was would only add yet another crack to her aching heart. A heart could only crack so many times before shattering.

"A miserable woman, a miserable day; spare a coin gents!"

The cry for alms sent Johanna spiraling into a world of aggravation, of fear. The same voice had haunted her within the dark hours of the day and well into the night. Johanna was not completely certain if the dejected song spread into her dreams, or reality itself was a never-ending.

"Alms!" the cry came again.

The tremble in her fingers almost obstructed her movements as Johanna rubbed at her skull. Her bones seemed to throb like the beat within her breast, only the beating of her heart seemed to be a greater ache than any other. _Why could the beggar not silence her cries and leave her be?_

"Alms, sir?!"

Johanna rocked back and forth; she tugged at a strand of her tresses until golden clumps coiled to the floor.

"Stop speaking, stop speaking," Johanna mumbled mindlessly, rubbing her eyes raw as the beggar's words morphed into a lost lullaby once again.

How strange it was that a lullaby could drive even the sanest of girls to the point of insanity.

"Alms for a miserable woman!"

At her wits end, the girl stood to her feet and tore open the curtains of the library. As light pierced the darkness, she whimpered from the back of her throat at its binding power. She searched the crowds through squinted eyes for the source of the tormenting voice.

Men stopped short upon seeing her and gaped in a binding stupor. All had heard of the beautiful judge's ward, none had seen her for a year now. The rumor had been she was sent away to a school for a young women, the whispers of a small child sent to Botany Bay penal colony were far more enthralling.

Johanna would have searched for hours amongst the crowds of wealth if she had not heard the creeping lullaby once again. Following the voice, she managed to locate the owner and study the woman that had taken over her mind with her ominous song.

A gruesome woman stood across the way, the rags clinging to her like a second skin. Matted hair adorned her grey head, caked with grime, but the piercing eyes of the beggar seemed to pop out amongst the darkened filth. Something seemed to indicate that this was not the woman's natural color, that the horrors of her life had stripped her irises of their tint, but again, the suspicions were menial.

A certain aura surrounded the mysterious woman, a nearly tangible force that made Johanna open the window and observe the beggar without the distorted glass obstructing her vision. A cold breeze ruffled her hair and nipped at her skin.

Now men were stopping in mid-footstep to catch a glimpse, a lone glance at the breathtaking beauty and of all the people, the beggar woman was the only person to not have caught sight of Johanna.

It must have been dawning terror that constricted her throat; breathing seemed to have become impossible as the girl caught sight of what the beggar woman clutched fervently to her chest. Cradled within the woman's tattered arms was a raggedy doll, pale, filthy and worn. Was this woman once sane? Could she had once bared the title of mother before whatever terrors had ensued?

But the one thing that was, above all, the most terrifying thing about the beggar was the haunting remembrance of an old friend Johanna once knew. A lost woman who had taken her own life after the death of her child, her reason to live. Was this beggar a foreshadowing of what Rosemary would have morphed into had she lived, alone without her babe? Before she had pulled the trigger that sealed her fate, had Rosemary known that only madness would ensue if she entertained her empty life?

That was the reason, it had to be. She had killed herself and this homeless, insane, and alone woman was a reflection of the future, of what could have been.

_She had to speak with her; then, and only then, would the madness cease_.

And that same force that had convinced Johanna to open the window and observe the woman with stinging eyes now persuaded her to reach a hand towards the beggar and call out to her.

"Ma'am, please, come here!"

Several women stopped short and sent the girl a series of baffled frowns.

Agitated, Johanna pointed towards the beggar and demanded, "No, _her _!"

Murmurs of shock and disapproval erupted as people realized whom the girl was pointing to. A young gentleman mustered the courage to jostle the beggar, reject her offers of crude prostitution, and point out the young girl who had called for her.

A light sparkled in the woman's eyes upon seeing Johanna, growing and growing like a fire of hope as she interrupted her senseless rants and walked forward.

Gradually, the crowd came to life once more and continued to bustle about the streets and get on with their day.

"Hello," Johanna offered lightly while the women placed herself in front of the library window.

The woman twitched and grinned widely, muttering, "Pretty Johanna." Her fingers shook with quivering movements, she twirled her hair coyly. The action sent grains of dirt and lice flying to the floor.

Johanna furrowed her brow. "You know my name, ma'am?"

As if she had not heard what the girl said, the beggar mumbled lowly, "Li'l, yellow haired angel..." The empty smile widened, displaying a set of rotten teeth. "Where's mama, little dove?"

Tears burned the girl's nose and stung her eyes. "I do not know where my mother is."

"I'm a mother," the beggar stated proudly, producing the haggard doll for inspection. "My baby daughter," she added while rocking the doll with swayed, accurate, and perfectly precise movements. It was almost like she had done so before.

Johanna's heart swelled with emotion, her words inflected with grief. "She is a beautiful baby."

They stood like that, Johanna gazing into the filthy face of the woman, the beggar cradling her "child" and gawking at Johanna with twinkling eyes.

She cleared her throat to speak. "What is your name, ma'am?"

The moment had shattered; immediately, the atmosphere had sunk to the coldest depths of the woman's insanity. In a mad frenzy, the beggar woman beat her head with curled fists and wailed, "The witch woman...she calls me Lucy! No, no, Lucy Barker, she says. The witch calls me Lucy....no, no...!" She clutched at the doll with a passionate force of a lost mother and began to scream the name, over and over again, until her speech fell into violent coughs, blood that dribbled down her blistered chin and stained the stone walkways.

Johanna backed away, tears of dawning horror misting her eyes like London fog, breaths short and hurried. Unblinking, she receded from the mad woman that shrieked to the heavens her true name...Lucy Barker.

_Lucy Barker. _

The memories shot to the surface of Johanna's mind, demanding to be heard, to be seen.

And no matter how much it pained her, Johanna had to see and she had to listen.

"_I had a mother?" she had said, so strongly desiring to know the truth of her fairytale past._

"_You absolutely did," _he_ had replied. After so long, she could still remember the faint glow in his eyes of subdued joy at the thought of his beloved._

"_Well, what was her name?"_

"_Your mother's name was…" her father's voice then fell away, dissolving into the silence that eternally surrounded them._

"_Yes?"She had leaned in towards him and grasped his arm. He stared at her fingers, lost in the memories of surreal joy._

"_Lucy."_

Pain. The thought of her father, his face. The realization that the shrieking woman before her window was her lost mother, that the faint shine in her eyes was not of familiarity, but of madness.

She had once wondered what the world had done to her father, her life, her reason, but now, she could only direct that dreaded question towards the mad woman. Her own mother, now lost to the world, with only the faint remembrance of her daughter preserved in a raggedy child's toy.

_But her mother was alive! She should embrace her, kiss her covered in grime and rejoice that her family was not completely destroyed, only fragmented. Maybe they had a chance, all of them, to be reunited once again. _

The floor creaked with strident moans. Johanna's eyes raced towards her feet in reassurance that she was not the one that had been the cause of the sound.

She was not.

The room's air seemed to have plummeted into horrid obscurity as Judge Turpin stepped around his ward and stalked the room to the little, library window and gazed outside.

Only the beggar's screams were heard, and they too became muffled as the judge slowly closed the window and cloaked the library with curtained darkness.

_Had he heard? Was it possible that he was well aware that her mother had revealed her true identity unknowingly to not only her daughter, but her daughter's captor? Did he know to begin with?_

"Lucy Barker," he finally hissed through his clenched teeth. The only indication of the coming storm was his clench fists, pulsating with flourishing antagonism.

"W-w-what has happened to her?" the blonde stuttered. Her fingers balled into fists to keep from shaking as they rattled against her sides.

The moment she caught a glimpse of the murderous spark in her guardian's eyes, the question had ultimately changed from a beseeching query to a demanding accusation. "What did _you_ do to her?"

The Judge turned to look at her. Johanna was almost thankful for the room's dim lighting or she would have read the spite in his gaze all too clearly. But even in shadow, the blaze of his smoky eyes still emitted like the glow of wildfire.

"What did_ I_ do to her?" Turpin glided forward. "Why do you ask, child? That woman means nothing to you." His cold and steady words seemed to be forced; he was furious.

Johanna exhaled shakily and pierced her lip with sharp teeth.

"Ah, I see," the Judge stated quietly.

She instinctively stepped backwards, eyes locked on his expressionless face like a vulnerable, trapped animal.

"You are aware that she is your mother."

It had not been a question. He knew.

Words piled in her throat and not even gnawing her lips shut could stop those words from spilling out of her mouth.

"You lied to me!" Johanna cried, surprised that of all things she was feeling at the moment, betrayal was the most predominant.

Just as he did on the night of his indifferent torture, his defiling sin, Turpin began to encircle her with slow, weighty steps.

"No, I never lied to you," his sigh seemed to shake the books delicately placed on the shelves, "You see, I myself thought that your mother was dead after I was informed she had run to an apothecary and downed arsenic. Never had I planned nor imagined that the woman who shrieks outside of my home nearly every night is..._was_...Lucy Barker." He spat out the name and stopped his encircling pace.

Her only choice was to remain wordless. A single sound, she had learned, could spark his fury. Like a pathetic little girl, Johanna ruthlessly picked at a hangnail and kept the words to herself.

Silence.

"But you want to know what I have done to her," the Judge continued after a lengthy pause. A deep inhale, and then he was rummaging in an oak desk to his right, fiercely searching for something.

Cracks between the curtained cloth allowed tiny rays of light to illuminate the room, enough luminosity to display a long, black mask held between Turpin's fingers. It was a frightening sight, a distorted face consisting of a bird's pointed beak with narrowed slits for eyes. All of the odium and rage within Turpin's soul seemed to be displayed in that one mask, molded into the material like an actual piece of his malicious soul. Johanna had to avert her eyes from the sight of it. It terrified her.

"This is an accessory to one of my party outfits," he explained. A twisted, icy smirk shot to his lips. "And this is exactly what I was wearing the night I lured your once glorious mother to my home with the promise of your father's return as a reward. I then _defiled _your mother-"

A sob burst from her throat, Johanna pressed fingers against her mouth to stifle her weeping. He had now stood opposite of his desk, the distance between the two remained mockingly sparse.

"-in front of all of my guests-"

_Not only her, but her mother as well! _A fist of cruel reality pummeled the breath from her chest.

She was going to be sick.

"-until she was bleeding and broken, wishing for death-"

Johanna stumbled into the writing desk during her sightless retreat. Materials rolled upon the wood. Turpin now advanced forward, slow and unfeeling.

"-just as I did to you." His hot breath tickled her teary cheeks, he placed a hand on her collarbone. Soon, the fingers tracing her skin brushed against her rapid pulse, curling around her throat. He spoke. "Would it not be a thrill if I could say that with this tiny mask, I will have ruined both a mother and a daughter?"

Beneath his fingers, he could feel her rapid breathing traveling through her windpipe. Smiling to himself, he marveled at the fact that the slightest pressure had stopped her breathing all together. With great pleasure, Turpin leaned forward and inhaled the exhilarating scent of his ward, his future wife, his quarry.

"...A _beautiful_ daughter." His voice was thick, deep, hungry with lust. The mask fit perfectly on his face, just as it had fifteen years ago.

Was it panic that gave her the strength to fight? Was it bravery, or vindictiveness, or adrenaline? Johanna did not know, her mind remained blissfully ignorant to the reason of her motive. Yet, the promise she had made to her father rang in her ears as if hearing it was somehow the answer. Those words screamed at her as she fell through the hell she had already lived through and relived every nightmare she had refused to speak of.

These were the same words that had plagued her when she considered flinging herself from her prison ship. When she had first been brought before the front door of her _guardian's_ home.

_"Fight to live."_

That is what her father would want, be he dead or alive, it was what her mother would want, be she sane or mad, and it was what _she_ wanted, be it that she too succumbed to madness or even to death.

_Fight!_

"No!" she screamed, and with all the force she could stand, the girl pushed his hands away from her throat, slipping away from his hulking body.

He groped at the air after her escape, but eventually caught her arm between his hands and slammed her back into his chest. This time, he wasted not even a minute before clutching at the hems of her dress and attempting to rip it from her body.

Just as he had done before to her, to _her_ mother.

Johanna pushed against his large hands, and finally squirmed free of his iron grip. Her escape had its cost. With a whimper, she lost her footing and fell to her knees, scrambling away from him though she shook, wept, and shrieked like her insensible mother.

A growl tore from the judge's chest, he leaned towards the floor and trapped her beneath his body. His hands, all over her, his weight, crushing. When she screamed, he struck her, and when she sobbed for her father, he laughed. He, just like the Australian guards, laughed at their prisoner's weakness.

"Please, don't," she begged. Her voice was lost to his aggressive breaths, his daunting laughs.

_He was going to _hurt _her again._

"My Lord," the Beatle declared as he swung open the door; Turpin's head shot up, eyes widened with shock and growing rage, "the bastard from the case..." Bamford's words fell away and he studied the scene before him, notably regretful for his distraction.

And for Johanna, the distraction was all she needed.

Swinging every part of her body, the girl inflicted as much power onto the body on top of her own as she could. When the slightest bit of weight upon her had shifted, she crawled from under him and staggered to her feet, hyperventilating, while she clawed the walls for support. Desperate, she flung herself away from the Judge and ran past the Beadle into the bright hallway.

The tears fell no more.

Servants and maids exclaimed in shock as they saw their eloquent, courteous, petite Johanna, running past them, her hair in disarray and dress ruffled, bloody streaks adorning her aggrieved face. She had run joyfully to her father or playfully with Peter, but never in her life like this, fleeing from men who wanted to have her all for themselves. Never with her nerves burning from agony or the blows to her body stinging horridly, like she was lit aflame.

On several occasions, she had stumbled to the floor and screamed when the sound of her own footsteps were mistaken for the horrifying approach of her pursuers. Hands had grasped her forearms and attempted to bring her to her feet. She would not risk anything. Shrieking, "No!" once again, she managed to wriggle away from the unknown person's hold and tear through the halls.

Only one thought gave her the terrifying vigor to slam into her bedroom door and throw herself at her window of endless torment, feverishly searching the crowd: _What would Turpin do to her mother now that he realized who she was? _

The cold London air licked the glass of her window; it was like ice beneath her fingers as she placed the palms of her hands on its surface. Sorely tempted to press her face against the glass, Johanna crushed her trivial desires and continued her hunt.

Nothing. Her mother was nowhere in sight, hidden by the bustling crowds of carefree Londoners.

With a whimpering breath, Johanna ran her eyes over each and every one of their faces. Turpin had gotten to her mother first, God only knew what he was to do with her now.

Eyes closed, Johanna prayed that those men would not find her mother. Even if she was never to see her again, just to know that Lucy Barker lived would be enough comfort to sustain a stolen fragment of her broken happiness. "Please, not my mother!" she wept with tears flowing as she opened her lids to stare at the citizens.

One woman managed to catch her eye, though it was not her mother. A wild set of auburn curls rested on top of the female's head, her fiery, dark irises stood out from amongst the commotion. Johanna breathed shakily, realizing that the unknown female was staring right into her window, directly at her. Something shadowed the woman's gaze, a mournful darkness as she studied the blonde girl with tired, red-rimmed eyes.

And then, just as it had her mother, the lively swarm of late afternoon strollers swallowed her up.

It was as if she had never even been there.

**Monrovia, Liberia**

"No, I do _not_ want to buy a bloody bottle of ambergris!" Todd shouted towards an increasingly aggravating native.

The native man smiled stupidly and shook his head, an indication that he had not understood a single word that the foreigner had said and that his outburst was clearly mistaken for enthusiasm.

Anthony Hope snorted loudly as a fit of laughter made his chest heave. The smoldering glance from his enraged cabin mate had him quickly subdued, just as it had the many previous times. Clearly, Sweeney Todd had no patience for anyone or anything that barricaded him from his main objective: returning to London.

Such was the behavior of Sweeney ever since he stepped foot off of the _Bountiful _and onto Liberian soil along with a mob of sailors in need of restocking their good ship.

Simple necessitates were needed; food and water, rope and rum, a much-needed visit to a hidden brothel. After many of the errands had been run, a cluster of sailors ran like deprived animal's to the nearest prostitute as the young and innocent Anthony Hope stayed behind, leisurely browsing side shops for nothing in particular, completely alone with his less than enthusiastic acquaintance.

After shrugging off the local vender once again, Sweeney trudged down the dirt roads, recoiling from the commotion around him, and yet, the most silent irked him the most. He coldly assessed Anthony through side glances, gnawed at the inside of his cheek, and sent another native vender a challenging scowl.

"Boy," he demanded sharply, turning to face Anthony, "I do not need you to be following me about. Go with your crew and I will meet you on the ship at sunset, like we agreed."

The boy's cheeks flushed a crimson red. "Er, no, thank-you, Mr. Todd. You see," he wiped his sweaty palms on the material of his trousers and licked his lips, "I'm not one for _brothels."_

Sweeney's sharp sigh seemed to be the only indication that betrayed his shock. "So _that's_ where they're goin'..." he mumbled. "Runnin' like bats out of bleedin' hell."

An awkward silence ensued. "Sir," Anthony nearly whispered, "if you wish to join them..."

"No! No, no, no," Todd chanted almost to himself. "No," he then whispered at the conclusion of his rant with a side step around a small boy playing in the dirt. He did not even pay the child a glance; his eyes seemed to remain focused ahead, but never on a certain destination. But the solid determination in his bold eyes declared that wherever he may be headed, he most certainly would not fail in reaching it.

"I am sorry, sir."

"Don't be...you're a child."

Scowling at the statement, the sailor walked along the side of Sweeney and heatedly thought over the man' s odd ways until his head pulsated with exhaustion. The man had refused to speak of his past before their meeting, he had refused sleep after his persistent offering, and of all things, the man had not even the capability to pick up a book and read. But, Anthony had insisted that doing so was an enjoyable pastime until Todd begrudgingly began to read, only to slam the book on the table after several attempts to read a single passage.

The young sailor did not know that the echoing screams of dying men within Sweeney's mind had disallowed him to read and the pleading cries of his young daughter robbed him of concentration.

"We are to make only a few more stops before reaching London, Mr. Todd," Anthony began, changing the mood altogether.

"Mmm," the man mumbled. _What did matter how many ports they docked in before they reached London? Was that not only a reminder of how long it would take before he could find his family again? _

"Ambergris?" the same native advertised after running towards Sweeney Todd, producing the bottle with a brood grin and a flourish of his hand.

"IF YOU DON'T GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY SIGHT-!"

Though Anthony earnestly tried to haul Todd away from the oblivious merchant, the man did not budge. Instead, he began to take a set of menacing steps towards the seller, intent on releasing his anger on the native's head or at least the damned bottle he was holding.

" Mr. Todd, he does not know any better! Please, let's just ," he rammed into the man's side and began to heave, his feet sliding in the dirt, "walk!"

Sweeney whirled his body in the exact opposite direction of his enemy and slammed his feet in defeat as he marched onward. Anthony sighed in relief, soon gasping for breath after rushing to his mate's side.

Minutes passed of pointless walking and Anthony, being so unaccustomed to the silence, struck up a conversation.

"The native's here are ex-slaves from America, so I suppose they're not exactly natives," he chuckled. "It is good to see prisoners with a chance to lead normal lives, don't you agree?"

Sweeney grunted in response. The topic was beginning to grow a bit unsettling.

"It is a shame, though, that not all men have a chance such as this." He lightly observed the setting around him. " I remember when I travelled to Devil's Island."At Mr. Todd's silence, Hope elaborated. "Devil's Island is a French penal colony, sir. One of three-"

"I am well aware of Devil's Island, boy," the disquieted man replied lowly.

Brow furrowed, Anthony tried once more. "Yes, well, then you are more than aware of its notorious conditions. I personally think that those men deserve a chance of redemption, or at least shorter sentences."

The boy frowned, deep in thought. His next few words were unexpected to not only Mr. Todd, but to himself.

"My mother, Anna, has remained in England along with my two elder sisters, Lillian and Josephine, for countless years. Both of my older brothers went abroad, which influenced me to do the same, I should think. I never met my father, though, he abandoned my mother the eve of my birth."

Now, the young sailor spoke more to himself than anyone else. Todd slowed his steps to hear his companion's words. It was true, he did not prefer speech, but nonetheless, he was a gifted listener.

"I had not even met my father, my mother is now an aged woman, miles away; my sisters are married women of good households, and yet, I could never imagine being shut away from the world without a chance of seeing their faces again, just as so many prisoners are. One cannot help but empathize with the wretches."

It seemed as if any sort of speech was the immediate source of anguish within the older man, thus resulting in his empty silence. But, suddenly, as if resentment supplied him with a shield to his own pain, Sweeney began quietly, "I'm heading back to the ship, now. I've truly had enough of this hell-hole town."

Anthony paused momentarily. "Would it be alright if I came along, Mr. Todd?"

After deep study of the boy's slightly hopeful expression, Sweeney Todd nodded solemnly and began to make his way back to the _Bountiful_.

As they walked in silence, a reflection of their intense thought, the young sailor never once left Todd's side.

**And at the conclusion of this very important chapter, I humbly request your reviews! Thank you all!**


	27. Chapter 27

**Chapter 27**

**London, England**

_Do it. _

The night was a cold one, even more so upon the stone steps of the Great Judge Turpin's house. It seemed that this was the area of emptiness within the world, this very spot where a soul would enter the luxurious mansion, never once leaving without a dreaded change for the worse. No one could leave this hell unscathed.

She stood, admiring the ebony material that clung to her skin, briefly recalling the reasons she held for such dark apparel. On this night, she wore a frayed widow's shawl and would continue to do so until her mourning had abated...and the Lord knew that her grief was not _entirely_ directed towards her deceased husband.

_Do it!_

The task was a simple one; Knock on the door, await for the repugnant man-servant to answer her call, withstand his obscene remarks, and step inside. Yet, the challenges that remained inside the ominous home was a different task at hand.

_DO IT!_

Hurriedly, as if in anger, the woman pushed herself forward and rapped on the door with her knuckles instead of using the brazen knocker. She almost enjoyed the stinging sensation that shot up her arm. In her world, pain was the only reality that existed.

Her head whirled to find an object of distraction, anything to take her mind away from the spot in which she stood, the set of footsteps that she could faintly hear walking towards her from the inside of the lavish home. As her fiery eyes roamed the terrace, a stone lion caught her eye's interest. With scorn in her glare, she challenged the lion's stare and continued to do so until the door's creaked open. Light pooled onto the stone steps and brightened the air around her.

At first, the Beadle seemed truly tempted to slam the doors shut. Forcing the same, sickening smile, he cooed, "Ah, Eleanor Lovett!" He assessed her deeply, aggravation making his lips gather into a pout.

After a minute of avoiding his gaze, Mrs. Lovett finally pasted a similar false smile to her lips and turned her head towards him. Only her smile was that of disdain, of revulsion. "Beadle Bamford," she replied with an incline of her head towards the lit hallway behind his stout form. "Would yeh be so kind and let me in?"

"Why ever would I let you do that, my dear woman?"

Her face lowered so that her eyes were nearly as dark as the unwavering pitch of her voice. "Yeh know wot I want."

The Beadle's gaze ran over her, taking in every detail from the sinister spark in her eyes to the way in which her pale lips rose at the corners of her mouth in a steadfast smirk. Her confident air was triumphant.

"Very well."

And with that, he turned and descended down the wooden hall. The woman stepped forward and closed the oak door behind her. Its resounding shudder vibrated seemingly throughout the entire home.

As she followed Bamford past the maze of doors, she calmly assessed her surroundings. The rooms smelled of wood and leather, the air was warm, and ornamental trinkets rested on nearly every wall in attempts of brining refinement to the place. She scowled at this.

They entered the party area. A wave of nauseating memories hit Eleanor in the chest and for a moment, she considered fleeing from the room and seeking pleasure in her quaint parlor room with a soothing fire by her side. Pure loss seemed to bind her to the spot. Staring around at the winding mirrors and candlestick holders, she solemnly became lost in a world, a different time.

Her fingers slid across the fabric of a lounging chair as distinct words infiltrated her thoughts.

_"Eleanor," Lucy had sobbed, clinging to her dress as tears moistened the once pastel material, "he tricked me! The Judge..." The woman pressed her legs tightly together and trembled as golden tresses fell onto her bloody lips. "On the chair..." _

The rest of her words seemed to dissolve into nothingness, but the ruthless weeping echoed around her.

"Coming?" the Beadle questioned impatiently at the end of the room. His eyes were widened in inquiry.

"Yes," she replied sharply, snapping from her thoughts.

Eventually, Bamford came to a half-closed door. Light from the inside of the room spilled into the dim hallway. His gloved hand rapped lightly on the door.

The deep answer of the room's occupant made Lovett's heart shudder in dread.

"I suggest you make it quick," the Beadle advised, though it had more appeal to a threat. He then pushed the door open fully and slipped inside, assuming a disarming position in the corner.

Exhaling, she stepped inside and faced _him_, like a doomed soldier awaiting the ring of gunfire at the battlefront.

The Judge did not look up from his papers. Instead, while still writing upon a sheet of parchment, he silently waited for her to speak.

After clearing her throat for nearly the seventh time in the past minute, Mrs. Lovett began, grimacing as her voice wavered more than she had hoped for. "Your honor."

He nonchalantly nodded his head. Still, never looking at her.

"Yeh may not remember me. I came 'ere...fifteen years ago concernin' the fate of a," she paused, "a friend."

The Judge's hand froze.

"Do yeh...do...?" she shut her lips. The words simply would not come out.

"I remember," Turpin replied suddenly. He looked up at her and met her eyes with his own, unfeeling ones. "Eleanor Lovett."

Unlike many of his victims, though, she met is glare head-on.

"What is it that you want?"

"I wish to ask for leniency on behalf of...Lucy Barker."

The Judge seemed taken aback by the answer, his head brutally turning to his side.

It was only then that Mrs. Lovett noticed the little blonde head by his side. Her breath cut off with a pained, choked whimper.

After fifteen years, Johanna still held the same golden hair that she was graced with at birth, the same dazzling comparability to a woman that she now prayed would be spared. Those eyes, the small blue, baby eyes she had grown to love now were so darkened, so lifeless; they were the eyes of a tormented child, unable to grow without love and compassion, like a flower without sunlight.

The child blinked in nearly dead responsiveness. She turned towards her guardian, slowly, and dared meet his burning glare. The moment she had done so, the blue eyes raced to the comfort of her lap. She was frightened of him.

Mrs. Lovett, paralyzed by the bitter reunion with a child who held not even a single memory of her, felt resentment creeping in her chest, like a boiling liquid seeping through her blood. She had cared for Johanna for nearly two months before Turpin had swept her away, never to be seen again. Only from the lips of scarce customers had she heard news of Johanna, and at the present time, the news had been becoming a bit more...alarming. Whispers of prison or boarding school, screams at night or deadly illnesses were all that she heard of the Judge's ward after her absence. What had happened to the sweet, bouncy child she had learned to adore with the passion of a mother?

But when she caught sight of his large hand tightly gripping her limp fingers, the anger soared to black hatred. A man such as Turpin was not capable of fatherly compassion, only lethal desire. Her mind recoiled at the possibilities that were unmasked at such thoughts, and at times such as this, she would have liked to think that human nature was not so sadistic, that a man would not adopt a child for future practices.

And yet, human nature would not_ be_ human nature if it were not sadistic. She knew that all too well.

"Go to your room," he instructed his ward coldly.

Mrs. Lovett shifted uncomfortably upon noticing the tremble within the girl's pressed lips, as if she were about to cry. But, obediently, she stood to her feet and walked forward. Briefly, she dodged a glance towards Eleanor, before sneaking out of the room. She had not closed the door afterward.

With the certainty that his ward had departed, Turpin returned his eyes to Lovett's and observed her lightly. "You've gotten older."

Mrs. Lovett would have laughed at this had she not restrained herself. Had they not all gotten older?

"If I am correct, you are married to that rather _large_ fellow," he mused.

"Even in death, your honor," was her cool response. How odd it was that she felt nothing at the mention of her cherished Albert's demise.

"It seems that time has taken its toll on us all."

For once, she agreed with him.

"And you are still a baker on Fleet Street?"

"Yes," she grimaced, "_sir_."

He stared hard at his desk, an indication that he held not a single care for her personal life. "I do not think that you came to speak with me of your husband or your bakery, though."

The woman squared her shoulders. "Yeh would be right." It was true, she would have given anything to not be in the position she was at that exact moment. But she had seen Lucy being dragged away, cackling and shrieking like a lunatic animal, and to allow Johanna's only mother be killed was almost sinful. Yes, she had strongly disliked the woman and had hoped that by ignoring her, she would disappear, but standing aside and allowing her to die was not acceptable. She had to try. After all, the woman had suffered enough, a time of which Mrs. Lovett had felt was partially her fault. Perhaps it was guilt that gifted her with the courage to stand before the judge. Or maybe she was just as insane as the woman she begged for.

For a while, Turpin studied the surface of his desk hard, a torn expression of sorrow and rage. He turned his gaze upward and in a trembling whisper, asked, "Why have you come back?"

She closed her eyes at this, feeling the sting in her eyes bringing forth misty vision. "To...ask- beg- yeh to release," the woman swallowed deeply, " Lucy Barker from Newgate prison."

Leaning forward, he overrode her plea. "I know _that_. What I meant to say is...why is it that you are here for _her_?" A crooked sneer crept to his lips. "Do not think that I hadn't seen the amorous looks you sent Lucy Barker's _husband _before I shipped him to the colonies. It is my job to see, to know."

The words had sent a blow to her defenses, but she remained strong.

"I do not see why I should not have her killed, was she not once your competition?"

Quietly, the woman replied, "Yeh cannot kill 'er...she's deranged."

"She is violent, a danger to herself and society."

"That is not a charge worth killin' 'er over!" Lovett cried.

The Judge's smiled, black eyes twinkled with enjoyment. "In my court, it is."

She could have screamed at him, listing the horrors that he had put the Barker family through in one agonizing breath until she fainted from exhaustion. She really could have, but she did not.

Though, one accusation managed to burst from her lips. And like the bullet of a gun, once the words had been fired, they could not be taken back. "Yeh truly are goin' to kill 'er? After all that you've done to 'er-" She bit her lip and ceased the rapid shot of words.

Turpin, suddenly at his feet, placed the palms of his hands flat upon his desk and bent forward, an attacking position. "To what are you referring, Madame?" An aggressive memory had sparked in his mind at the condemning sentence of the baker, a memory consisting of a loveseat, a scream, Lucy, and his flesh claiming her own. His lips tugged at the corners of his mouth, but an abnormal throb in his chest quickly terminated the grin

His words, like the piercing sensation of her baking cleaver's, stirred an unfamiliar sense of fear within the woman. Eleanor Lovett was not a timid woman, it was not in her nature; and yet, this man seemed to twist and turn her in every direction until she became someone unlike herself. Someone frightened and...susceptible.

And when the pain in his chest had subsided, the judge smiled at the woman's growing weakness, at his ability to manipulate so easily. "And what would you give me if I had released her from prison?" he questioned maliciously.

Mrs. Lovett, seething with desperate fury, spat, "My _happiness_."

Turpin raised his brow at this, speaking in the most mocking of tones. "How..._pathetic_, Mrs. Lovett. If I do recall correctly, you had offered me a _bit_ more than _happiness _when you begged for leniency on Benjamin Barker's behalf." Though Mrs. Lovett was a strong woman, she, like so many, had a weak spot. And Turpin had stripped her of her barriers until he had found it, and now, he had used it to abolish his quarry. Just like a game.

Instantly, her eyes blinked away tears of utter hate and shock. With one degrading memory, she had remembered all that time had promised to erased, all that she had begged for her memory to burn, like paper to fire. And as if Turpin were God himself, he simply smirked as the ashes of her memories took form in her mind, blossoming, consuming her in their whir of helplessness.

There was nothing she could do. If the judge wished Lucy Barker dead, then it was her unavoidable doom. It should not matter, she had hated the woman anyway.

_She should not have come_.

Mrs. Lovett stuttered, "I-I-I'm goin' to go. Now." She slapped a hand to her eyes and rubbed her eyes raw of any betraying tears.

The judge smiled his satisfaction, no longer standing. "Yes, I think that would be best. Do not fret, by morning your presence will have been long forgotten." His grin had vanished, as if an invisible force had slapped it off of his face.

"And my plea?" she rasped. It was worth a try, or so she hoped.

"Denied," the man responded sharply. Coldly maintaining composure, he grasped his pen and continued his work. He wrote with harsh force, nearly ripping his working papers with the sharp tip of his utensil. "Good night, Madame. I do believe you know the way out."

Instantly, at her uncaring dismissal, the pain had disappeared. Mrs. Lovett, mind blank and sparingly so, turned to take her leave. She enjoyed the momentary nothingness, there was never any hurt.

But the Beadle's smug grin shattered her absence of thought. In one moment, the pit of her stomach was suddenly churned with raging anger and the urge to slam the library door was overwhelming. The thought of doing so still rang fresh in her mind as she heatedly stomped through the dim hallways and daunting part room. She decided, after much debate, that slamming the front door to the home would both abate her fury and send the_ bloody _Judge a rebellious message.

As she placed her hand on the door's knob to swing it open, slender fingers clutched at her elbow.

Mrs. Lovett spun to face her next opponent, and nearly crying out, gazed into the youthful face of little Johanna. The girl stared at her, uncertainty and awe widening her eyes.

"Mrs. Lovett?" she inquired while breaking her hold on the woman's arm. Immediately, the baker yearned for the contact.

"Yes, dearie?"

A smile crept to the girl's lips, small, yet stunning. "It is you! Oh, I nearly laughed in delight after standing outside the library door for hardly a minute."

Grinning broadly, Mrs. Lovett realized that the child had not closed the door for hopes of hearing audible conversation. Clever girl.

"You were my father's landlady!"

Mrs. Lovett's grin faded. The thought of Benjamin still held the power to make the baker's heart pang painfully, and suddenly, shock wiped her mind clear of reason. "How did yeh know that, love?" she almost demanded , ashamed by her aggravating stupidity. _Was it possible the judge had informed his ward of her?_

"Oh, my father told me so himself."

If it was not the girl's claim that slammed Lovett with a wall of shock, then it was the nonchalant way in which she spoke that most certainly did.

Mouth agape, Mrs. Lovett fought vigorously to gain her own sanity as she questioned the girl before her. _Had the child gone mad?_

"Johanna," she spoke slowly, thinking over every word with passionate care, "your father...fifteen years ago," her lips pulled into a grimace," was sent away."

"I know that, ma'am, but he is _alive_."

A cold, dark void within the woman's heart was suddenly illuminated with the forbidden rays of hope. For so long, like life after death, she had remained true to her dreams, praying that Benjamin Barker would return to his home, to _her_.

Still, it was that same hope that had lead her to believe that, before his fateful arrest, Benjamin would have learned to see who she was and they would live out their lives forever in each other's company.

Common sense proved the following thoughts to be harshly precise: Benjamin would never have left his wife whilst in a right state of mind and _she_ was thinking like an obsessed child enjoying a game of "make believe". Albert was her husband. Dead or alive, he was her _husband_! What on God's green earth was she even thinking?

Her thoughts had been rushing so madly, Mrs. Lovett could have laughed at her own absurdity. Johanna had lost her mind to the madness around her, she was just another Barker to mourn. Benjamin could have been hung yesterday or have stepped onto London soil months ago, but there was no way on God's earth that his daughter could have known it.

"How," Lovett still asked, "do yeh know 'e is alive?"

Johanna brought a hand to her lips as if to smother a growing cry. "There is no time for that now, ma'am. I am certain that _if_ my father returns-" the girl scowled at her wording, "_when_ he returns...he will tell you everything, but I cannot." She ignored the tears that began to take form. "I must ask a favor, though." Trepidation forced the girl's words to come forth as rushed and jumbled. After several attempts to clear her throat, Johanna clasped her hands and awaited the woman's response.

Mrs. Lovett wearily replied, "What do yeh need, darlin'?"

Suddenly wary, Johanna furrowed her brow. "I can trust you?"

A melancholy smile crept to the baker's lips at the child's distrust. "Of course, yeh can, dear. Would I even be 'ere if yeh couldn't?"

Thoughts fought a fierce battle within Johanna's mind, each demanding she agree in their favor. She should trust the woman, after all, she had strived to save her mother's life.

The child swallowed thickly in satisfaction. "When my father returns, I beg that you do not turn him away. Please, give him a place to stay, even if it is a room, he can manage with that...and-" Her words fells short, overcome with growing emotion. Trembling, the girl spoke in a choked whisper as a tear rolled from her eyes and trailed down her cheek. "And please tell my father that I love him...no matter what happens, I am, and always will be, his Little Lady."

Such pleas rendered Mrs. Lovett speechless. With the words of a small girl, a grown woman had felt regret for not only doubting the girl's sanity, but pleading to a judge with half the sentiment that Johanna possessed in a mere moment.

"I'll do just that, love," she willingly agreed, "but 'ow did yeh know that-"

"Johanna?" the judge cried suddenly from down the hall. He stared at her, fury blazing in his gaze, his body looming in an ominous stance.

She jolted in response and swiveled to face her guardian, who had begun his rapid advance.

Time was nearly gone.

Sharply turning to face Mrs. Lovett, the girl beseeched her one last time. "You will not tell, ma'am?"

Mrs. Lovett sent the infuriated judge a glance, her face nearly as exigent as his. "Course not." Still staring around Johanna towards Turpin, the woman's hard face cracked with concern. "He will not 'urt you?"

Johanna, torn between truth and utter deceit, snapped her mouth shut and, with a meek parting glance, turned towards her guardian. Her folded hands trembled as she approached the judge, an action that did not go unnoticed by the baker.

"Did I not tell you to leave?" the judge hissed after grasping his ward's wrist and glaring at Mrs. Lovett. Frozen with fear, Johanna stood by his side and remained in subdued silence as the judge, jaw clenched, increased the grip on her arm.

The woman shook her head. "Thought I'd say a proper goodbye to Johanna, that's all. You've done a bloody right job raisin' 'er, sir." Smiling all too sweetly, she turned from the pair, opened the door, and stepped into the cool night. Cursing silently, she shut the door and, wishing that she had actually _said_ a proper goodbye to the child, walked towards her home. And her attempts to forget the girl's haunting look of unfathomable terror was all in vain.

She would stay in her parlor and she would wait, for there was nothing more to do. She would wait for a man that could possibly never arrive, wait for the unknown truth to finally be unveiled, wait for a chance to obscure her memories and dreams, and wait for the retelling of a message that she felt had all the meaning in the world, yet made not even a morsel of sense.

Time would run dry, days would morph into nights.

Sparse customers would speak of a judge's ward whose screams on the inside of her tainted mansion managed to grasp the attention of strollers during the late evenings.

Newgate Prison would reveal the fate of an ill-fated Lucy Barker within days.

And still, Mrs. Lovett would watch solemnly as the humanity spun around her in a maddening pattern, and she, unable to control it, would observe as the ones she had loved slip away from her life. Solitude would be her parlor companion for the months to come; solitude, gin, her damned meat cleaver, and morose thoughts of a lost family and a vindictive, lustful judge.

The entire world had gone mad.

**Marseille, France**

The thick, misty air of the French port soothed Todd's burning skin, but did nothing for the growing ache in his head.

Anthony regarded the other sailors as they piled off of the ship's gangplank and staggered their way into the port's small shops for one last chance at restocking their ship.

He preferred to remain with Mr. Todd.

The pair studied their surroundings, Anthony's gaze light and observational, Sweeney's, sinister and compelling.

Captain Hoyt, before stepping off of the plank, offered his young shipmate a warning glance. Then, as if there had been no exchange, he joined his first-officer in a stroll down the rows of shops with his familiar pipe puffing smoke that smelt of peppermint.

A distinct memory popped into Anthony's mind, reminding him of the many times that the Captain had warned him to "keep his distance from that Todd character" and "one such as Sweeney Todd is a mysterious bloke". To the man's well indented advice, Anthony had regarded it all with cool indifference. His friendship with Mr. Todd may have been odd, but nonetheless, the ambiguity of a man was surely not enough of a reason to end their bond!

Was it?

Mr. Todd was a strange man, granted. He did not see as others saw nor did he think as others thought. Anthony had accepted that. Yet, the forceful, and somewhat protective nature of his distant companion brought him a sense of familiarity that, surprisingly, he had never known before and felt as if he had. Any doubts he had held for the man was menial, Mr. Todd had never wronged him before. Besides, he had saved the man's life.

"I don't suppose you wish to see the port, sir," the boy suggested, smiling slightly.

Sweeney shot him a blank glance. "No."

Shrugging his shoulders, the sailor decided to switch onto a topic that would undoubtedly catch the man's interest: London. "We'll be nearing England soon, sir. The trip has been long enough, don't you think?" The boy quickly shook his head. Why did he ask questions when he would only receive a dull grunt in response?

The man's fingers instinctively curled around the wood of the ship's railing.

They were silent for a few moments and Sweeney could already feel his aching head begin to abate. Of course, Anthony's continued conversation changed all of that. "Will you be finding your family once we return?"

"I don't know," Mr. Todd admitted, and it was the truth. If God existed, then only he knew what fate had befallen his family. Sweeney had decided that it was a topic best left alone for the time being until he had the strength to face reality. Whatever had happened, though, misfortune would be inevitable.

"Well, I think we can safely say that London will be a fine ending to our voyage, sir."

Mr. Todd let out a hiss of air through his nose, as if he were almost laughing. "Yes, I'm sure it will be...rather interesting."

Accomplishment at lightening the man's mood made Anthony beam with pride. "What is it that you shall do upon arrival, Mr. Todd?"

In a flash, Sweeney Todd's eyes had receded to outlying sights, his skin had been shadowed though he had not moved an inch. "Business," he replied, his voice as black as his eyes.

In an attempt to avert his gaze from the frightening male, young Hope assessed France's nautical inhabitants. "It is truly amazing how so many diverging cultures all belong to the same world," he observed, admiring all that was around him.

Todd shook his head curtly. "The same world." His words, in dead repetition, fell away to the splash of sea water.

"I do find the world itself nearly as wondrous as its people. The love that there is, even in the foreign areas is...simply astounding," Anthony added.

And then, Mr. Todd chuckled, a harsh, miserable sound. "You will learn that the_ world_ is not as it seems," he promised the boy bitterly.

Control seemed to have forsaken the man the moment the swear had been uttered.

Just as Todd turned to leave, Anthony faintly heard Todd mutter, "Perhaps not now, but soon enough..."

**Hello, everyone! I am so sorry I have not updated in so long, I swear that I did what I could to throw this chapter together and still maintain a well-written story while doing so. Please review and thank you all so much for your patience!**


	28. Chapter 28

**Chapter 28**

**London, England**

_The warm smell of pipe tobacco filled Johanna's nose and made her chess tingle with its familiar scent. Around her, she could faintly hear the jumble of buzzing conversation. There were men's voices, in verbatim to her cherished memories. The bumpy surface of a cot rested beneath her, smelling strongly of mold and tears._

_It was perfect. _

_At the end of her mattress, he loyally sat; her breathing, caring, protective father. The one man that had taken the worthless darkness of her life and sprinkled light into every crevice of her being; the angel that had given feeling to the word 'love', when she had once thought it to be senselessly abstract._

_Words, long withheld, suddenly slipped from her lips. None were of her choosing. _

"_Papa," she began in a watery voice, "do you ever have nightmares?"_

_As soon as she had spoken, his dark eyes turned towards her. Behind those eyes, terrifying horror rested within his stirred soul. He had seen so much, and still, the passionate love that overflowed from his irises upon setting his eyes on her remained astonishing. He had taken all from her in one glance, and yet, given her everything. _

_He seemed disturbed by her question, wavering between the truth and strength for the sake of his daughter. "Sometimes," her father admitted after a final thought. She burdened him with a worried glance, to which he responded in savory humor. "I don't sleep that much, my love, so I would say the nightmares are infrequent."_

_His answer, unsettling as it may have been, still brought the smallest of smiles to her face. The expression soon faded into the dreaded grimace she persistently wore. "I have nightmares…every night." _

_There was a moment of silence that Benjamin used to wearily study his girl. At the sight of the tremble in her lip, the accumulating tears in her eyes, he quietly spoke, "Come here."_

_For so long, she had not felt joy such as this, the utter happiness that embraced her while she rested within her father's arms. He held her like she remembered, no longer hesitant in his movements, but strong and sure. The material of his sleeve brushed against her cheek as she burrowed into his side, resting her blonde head on his shoulder, just like she had done numerous times before. And each time she had, she cherished the moments with undying fervor._

_He spoke again, but as he did, the surrounding noises of barrack prisoners, the warmth of her father's touch, and the scents of familiarity seemed to have evaporated into the air. "You'll soon find that reality is a living nightmare, Johanna, one that you cannot, and will not, ever wake from."_

_The harsh words, laden with a forewarning inflection to it, made her heart pulse painfully. A sharp stabbing in her body nearly paralyzed her from movement, though she managed to force her eyes to her form and, in great panic, observe herself. Dark bruises, in the shape of fingers, curled around her arms as if they were permanent bands that unveiled her torment for all to see, like the mark of Cain. _

_In growing horror, she silently observed the blood splotched on her dress, the pain that shot between her legs like knives._

_She wanted to be sick, to vomit and cleanse her body of filth and memories. She wanted to forget._

_Her father was gone, yet his words rang clear as if he were right beside her. He sighed, broken by the dreaded truth, "Why didn't you tell me?"_

A scream, strident and throaty, flew from her throat. The cry lasted well over a few seconds as Johanna receded brutally into the window of her seat. When the shriek had faded to gasping breaths, she sat straight and tiredly opened her eyes, running them over the ornate walls of her room. There was nothing that even hinted her vision to have been reality, nothing. And after a moment of thought, Johanna could not help but marvel in awe at the peculiarity of speaking to her father about nightmares whilst she was currently in one.

Perhaps she had received the desert illness a bit late.

The shriek seemed to have torn the inside of her throat raw. She whimpered after clearing her raspy voice and half expected to see blood pour from the corners of her mouth, just as it had the beggar woman.

Her mother…

In a form of self-defense, the girl forced even the slightest image of the haggard Lucy Barker far into the back of her mind, where she would never have to see it again, or so she had desperately desired.

Moonlight pooled in the room between the cracks of her curtained window. To her displeasure, she had been tempted to observe the tranquility of the night in hopes of _enjoying_ it.

Johanna pushed herself from the window seat and paced the icy, wooden floor to her single bed. The sting of the growing cold bit at her skin, exhaustion made her sway under its pressure. Rapidly losing her resistance, Johanna intently studied the welcoming sheets and plump pillows through narrowed eyes.

All along, she silently cursed her own fatigue._ Had she not learned that sleep only resulted in the nightmares? _

The door to her room opened only after a set of heavy footsteps had pounded down the hall. Turpin stepped into the room without his usual attempts at gentility. He had surprised her, not because of his discourtesy, but his lack of attempt.

"What is it?" he demanded with a wide step in her direction. His eyes displayed anger, a common sensation.

She turned towards him, bewildered and susceptible. "What do you mean, sir?"

There was a moment of silence in which he gawked at her as if she had sworn at him in a foreign tongue. "You screamed," the judge stated blandly. "For quite some time," he added absently.

Johanna looked at him incredulously. "I believe I had a nightmare, my lord." Panic gripped her almost instantly. It was best that she resorted to humility. "I am sorry, sir." If only she could have said that the terrifying vision had been because of him, because of the defiling acts he and his despicable partner had committed against her will.

An awkward look torn between pity and superiority distorted his normally calm features. "Yes, well…"

Even now, whilst in his mere presence, she felt she was a lowly, nonentity. With no other option but meaningless prayer, she begged that if he was to do as he sinfully wished, oblivion would do its job at shielding her. Oblivion and her father were one in the same, they always protected her, and in return, she devoted her entire spirit to them.

Her eyes never left the Judge's face as he relished the sight of her. The yearning in Turpin's face was only a reflection of the lust that made his skin itch for her touch. The disheveled blonde locks, her watery eyes and rustled, puce gown…simply looking at her was nearly forbidden, or that is what his religious practices preached.

But what Bible could deny a man the right to his engaged wife?

Night after night, he had tortured himself with the tempting thought of his ward, mutilating himself in every way possible for such repugnant desires. Stupidly and beseechingly, he begged God for release of such agony. Now, he was the pawn to her game; it was _she_ who manipulated _him_, that is, until he was victorious.

And he would win, either with her cooperation or his brutal force. He rarely abided by the rules anyway.

Through with his burning stares, and rebelliously so, Johanna turned from her guardian and approached the bed. Its soft material soon calmed her as she stroked the cloth with her fingers.

The serenity of the moment vanished; hands grasped her forearms from behind her.

It had been months since their confrontation in his study and Mrs. Lovett's heated plea, but the tensions that rested between the two had not eased since then. No, instead, they had increased dangerously.

An unseen potency kept her head held high. Turpin smiled at this, a young female with strength. He, on numerous occasions, had seen convict girls with this false pride. There they would be, perched on the stands at the Old Bailey before he stripped them of their dignity, their lives.

One could not describe the immense joy he felt at his accomplishments, a king after his triumph. If he could not succeed in gaining his desires outside of the courtroom, then he most certainly would within.

Like his victims, the Judge's lingering touch brutally shattered Johanna's carefully preserved confidence.

"It would be so much easier if you did not resist this," he breathed, his face inches from her fragrant tresses. She smelled of thick English Lavender. "My love for you can be rejected for only so long."

Thankfully, she felt no trace of guilt towards his accusation. Time had taught her that this man played a lethal role of victim when in her presence, hoping that somehow he would gain her pity. Still, a small voice of her shrill conscience stated that she may have indeed put her guardian in an area of such discomfort. This, however, proved nothing, nor did it matter.

What truly mattered at the moment was the particular way in which the judge was holding her now, how heavily her heart pulsed in her chest, against his own. Without a doubt in her mind, Johanna knew that the quivers in her body could be felt by him. Her fear fueled him, but satisfaction was not a reward of such knowledge.

"You do not love me," she whispered. "You never have."

He chose not to retort in words, but rather increase the power in the arms around his ward, soon wrapping them around her waist. Her grimace went unnoticed, for he held her back to his torso. The iron bars around her body were nearly suffocating.

Disheartened by his indifference, Johanna tried a different approach. "Sir, I am tired."

His lips, dangerously close to the crook of her neck, managed to pass forth words. "Allow me to stay with you, then."

It was then that Johanna realized that her only way of escaping the inevitable fate for the time begging was by assuming the role of a wife, a woman that worshiped the ground her fiancée walked upon. What else could she do? She was as desperate as she was doomed.

"I shan't sleep whilst you remain in my presence." The high pitch of her words nearly unmasked her fright. Nonetheless, she turned her head and faced him. Their eyes locked on each other. "I think that to be cruel, for I am truly tired and would be wretched company in such a state."

His surprise was notable on his face. Eyebrows receding to the crown of his head, Turpin replied, "If that is your wish." A sudden urge grasped him, and before she could stop him, he had pressed his lips to her cheek. "…Until tomorrow, my rosebud."

That was the last of it she could handle. As soon as his lock on her had loosened, her knees had buckled. She clutched at her throat and leaned heavily against the small bed. Her stomach churned with water; water and acid.

Turpin's face, falling for only brief second, became sour. "Though I find it hard to commend you at such a time," he smirked, "your pitiful effort is worth recognition."

Through accusing eyes, Johanna looked up at him and stared. The hurt in her gaze was profound, and she did not try, this time, to hide it.

His stone face put scorn on display. "I have power, Johanna, and with it, I receive what I deserve. You are mine, regardless of your actions and words. Nothing can take you from me, I will not allow it. We shall be united as one, you are to be my wife, until I or you, or both of us are dead."

Her mouth opened in soundless horror, which he mistook for oncoming words.

"Spare me your pleas; your fate cannot be altered." A wicked grin spread his lips. "Many of my prisoners would agree with that."

"And what of affection?" she inquired softly; her face remained bent. "You speak of marriage, but, sir, you have failed to produce a single word in recognition towards the love you claim to have for me."

Thoughts within his mind, unknown to Johanna, contorted the expression on her guardian's face. She was right, they both were well aware of that, but the difference between the two was Turpin failed to accept it any longer.

His steps, quick and menacing, soon advanced towards her.

The girl's initial instinct was to sob in terror, to quiver, whimper and cower. Dumbness ensued at the hands that roughly brought her to a standing position, only her lack of speech did nothing for her.

The Judge pushed her onto the bed. Upon contact, Johanna clawed through the winding sheets, reaching towards the floor and emitting insane screeches that not even she could comprehend.

With thrashing arms, she beat against his chest, expecting him to finish what he had started in the Library months ago. He did not, surprisingly, but instead rested beside her and brought her entire body to his chest. His grip was strong, yet it was not tight. His hold was sturdy, but it was not degrading.

Escape was impossible, she realized after minutes of continuous struggle.

"W-w-w-what are y-y-you doing?" she questioned, even as it took on the feel of a plea rather than query. Her hand laid flat against his chest as did her cheek. The pulse of her heart vibrated all the way down to her toes.

The man answered in a growl, almost an undecipherable sound. "I'm showing you affection."

This sort of affection, however thought out it may have been, was evidently unfavorable to the girl. The feel of his body beneath her own, his arms wound around her upper frame, his lips against the crown of her head, it was enough to send vomit up her throat, burning the strips of blisters caused by her screaming.

As disgruntled as her thoughts may have been, her mind could not withhold the memories that were needed to make the night even more torturous than it already was. She had only lain, nestled in a man's embrace, with her father, and so it was only right when _with_ her father. Even this position—discomforting as it was now—proved as a form of consolation to her when she was a mere convict in Botany Bay. How time could alter a soul…

The memory was clear, but clarity was an unwanted addition to the sting of pain that came with it. Her father had done as Turpin was doing, bringing her body to his and allowing her head to rest upon his chest. Johanna had found a sanctuary in that moment, for her father had only done this after one of the prison mates had been brutally shot to death at the hand of an incensed officer. She could remember screaming and covering her eyes to evade such sights, she could hear the peel of a lost mother's cry, and she could feel the thick spray of blood before the enveloping embrace of her protector dragged her away from the bloody mess to a quiet corner. With forceful movements, he had sunk to the floor and crammed her body into his iron embrace. The usual gentleness of his touch was banned; he handled her with the strength needed to budge a pile of stone or a barrel of dead. The embrace lasted for a lengthy time, she remembered, at least until her sobs and shaking had abated. Even after calmness had seized her, the desire to be held a bit longer remained intact.

In the arms of Turpin it was quite a different situation—now an agonizing ordeal. The pain was evident, the sobs and quivering shakes were unstoppable, and comfort from his hold was as impractical as stepping foot outside of her gilded prison, into the sunlight.

He held her well into the morning, when the moonlight streaks of light were now yellow beams of sun. None of them had slept that night.

His grip had loosened and he stirred. Awaiting the opportunity for hours, Johanna could have cackled at her release or desolately wailed over the horror of it all.

The tears she had shed seeped through his shirt; blotches of wet material now adorned it. His gaze brushed over her flushed face, following down to his dampened shirt, and finally resting on a barren wall of her room.

A vein in his neck bulged, his teeth clenched together in a grinding sound. Johanna watched sullenly as her guardian clenched his jaw and racing thoughts were mirrored within his tired, moistened eyes.

Silent, his movements irate as ever, the judge gruffly set her aside and exited the room with a slam of her door.

This time, no one was there to stop her from vomiting her disgust. Never before had she thought that, one day, she would lie in the arms of both her and her family's tormentor.

**English Channel**

The moment Sweeney Todd had been informed of their arrival into the English Channel, he had fled from his chair, where most of his brooding ensued, and rushed from the company of Anthony Hope. His feet pounding upon wooden floor, Todd had clawed to the upper decks, almost as desperate as the night of his flight from Cape Town.

Anthony Hope, alarmed at his friend's sudden and unpredicted flight, ran after him. Being young and agile proved nothing, when Todd was motivated, the Lord himself could not catch him.

As the sailor scampered to the stairwell, his beloved captain emerged from the shadows and stopped him in his tracks with a cool, "I'd like a word, boy."

Slightly put off by the distraction, Anthony Hope nodded in compliance.

The man's hand slipped nonchalantly onto Anthony's shoulder. With the slightest exertion of energy, he led him from the stairwell and to a secluded side of the dim hallway.

The smell of rum and mildew graced Anthony's nose as he stared into his captain's eyes, nearly as stormy as the waters that surrounded their dear ship.

He regarded the boy's paled face, the shine of his newfound curiosities. Hope's eyes glinted brilliantly, a contrast of glorious, unbanned innocence amongst the murky darkness of the _Bountiful_'s lower decks.

Such expressions would have normally comforted Hoyt, but the thin grimace he wore was only a hint of the raging concern within his experienced conscience.

"How's that Todd fellow been treatin' yeh?" he asked lightly. His tone fell afterward, plummeting to one of deep worry, of dread.

Anthony was well-aware of his captain's concern. After all, it was a sailor's responsibility to observe all and take in his surroundings, for both security and enlightenment. His young age was an addition to the serious way in which he handled his profession, when most others seemed to disregard such precautions and enjoy the foreign adventures of the world. Even young Hope knew that attentiveness was necessary; only a fool would cast it aside.

"He has been fine, sir," Anthony said, offering a soft smile for assurance.

Hoyt was no fool. Years of experience had taught that a spoken word and disarming grin meant nothing when in comparison to the reality of a situation. Such was the ways of life, twisted and misleading as they may be.

"And the extra labor 'as been fine as well, I assume?"

Unlike other times, Anthony actually paused thoughtfully in contemplation before opening his mouth. "Yes, sir, it has been both bearable and enjoyable."

The time was then that Hoyt decided to quit avoiding the topic and come out with the truth of his confrontation.

"Boy," he spoke softly, as if fearing to be overheard, "I've seen my share of men. Yeh know that. For years, it's been my job to observe and connect, to make sense of things and use my proper judgment for the good of my ship and crew." He leaned forward and clutched at the sailor's sleeve.

"What is it that you mean to say, sir?" Anthony raised his brows in inquiry.

_Perhaps he was truly clueless._

"What I wish to say is," the man continued in a whisper, "be wary of your friend, Todd."

Anthony shook his head in protest, but remained respectfully silent. If he had not heard this speech a dozen times from his crew members, he would have been actually been surprised by the topic at hand.

"Hear me out, son," Captain Hoyt commanded, with the sound of a plea. The boy sighed deeply and looked his captain in the eyes. "The man 'as come from nowhere credible, he's got no family other than what we managed to squeeze out of 'im, no friends, no employers, no job…Christ, 'e rarely eats or sleeps! It's as if 'e is a machine rather than a man, and all I get are these shit-infested excuses as to why."

"You know as well as I, sir, he has suffered from malnutrition in its worst of severity—"

"But why 'as he suffered from malnutrition? Why is it that the man was found, floating a piece of bloody wood in the middle of a deserted ocean? What events lead him to be there? And don't you dare throw out the bogus story that 'e came up with; I'd rather lose my lunch than 'ear it again."

"Sir!" cried Anthony, "he was on a merchant ship from London! You know that as well as I, so why can't we leave the man be?!"

A pregnant silence followed the young man's outburst. Anthony shamefully studied his shoes and gave them a distracting series of taps. Hoyt scowled and observed the boy, trying to see past his refreshing innocence and command him in a way that the boy could not refuse.

"Anthony, I only wish to say that this: a sailor's instincts are god-given. Be grateful of them and put them to good use. Sweeney Todd has little to no background, no information depicting the fateful events of his so-called merchant ship, and become's a bit stressed at the brief mentions of 'is past. Use caution; do not put all your trust into 'im." To soften the blow, Hoyt sent a mock punch to the boy's shoulder. "And when we dock in London, look for a girl, my boy. Lord knows, yeh need one pretty, proper lass, especially since you're not one for geishas, or concubines, and such…"

Normally, Anthony would have taken the humor with light-heartedness, but as of now, all comedic attempts were purged from his mind. He nodded once, that was all that was needed to put his respect on display, and asked for the man's pardon. When it was received, though Hoyt was rather reluctant in seeing the boy go, Anthony slipped past his once cherished friend and climbed the stairs to the ship's deck.

His thoughts like shrill sirens in his head, Anthony slithered between the crowds of conversing sailors and men at work, ignoring them all when they attempted words with him. They were probably like his captain, alarmed with everything he did simply because of his age. He was seventeen, with more experience than any other boy on land! His youth did not cloud his proper judgment, for God's sake, it enhanced it!

Tears misting in his eyes, the young sailor finally found what he had scavenged the decks for. Mr. Todd was leaning over the ship's railing, dark eyes scanning the watery terrain. Across the way, a strip of land protruded amongst the rick, blue sky.

England.

Without being detected, or so he thought, Anthony snuck beside his companion and bent over the railing. The mist of the Channel's waters cooled his pounding head.

He cast a quick glance toward Sweeney, who had been recently enjoying the tranquility of the moment, and returned his eyes to the ship's side. A breeze ruffled his hair, like the hand of a mother caressing her child's brow.

"Only a few more days, Mr. Todd."

The man swallowed, as if nervous at the thought, and jerkily nodded his head.

And they stayed there, for nearly the remainder of the day, or at least until Anthony's work could no longer be delayed. With a heavy heart, the boy excused himself and returned to his post, entranced by his work into the hours of early eve and finally late night. Every so often, he would spot Todd by the side of the ship, loyal to the ocean as a dog to master. Not even nightfall had altered the man's position.

Each time Captain Hoyt spared the boy a glance, Anthony would shy away from the man and become suddenly engrossed at the task at hand. Carting bottles of run to the poop deck, moving this and that, and pulling masts here and there so that the boat may turn to the port or starboard side; it was all the same labor. Nothing was as interesting as the company of Mr. Todd; nothing was as wonderfully baffling than the man's mere presence. Not even his captain could change _that_.

Anthony was exhausted from the work after his last task had been carried out. Had the captain increased his work just to keep him from Mr. Todd? Truth be told, he did not have the slightest idea.

The boy's legs wobbled as men receded to their cabins for sleep. He walked forward, grunting as a coil of rope robbed him of balance, and managed to spot Sweeney Todd, still as ever and in the same position he had left him in early that same morning.

"Mr. Todd," he panted, "would you care to retire back to the cabin now?"

The man seemed troubled by the question, and turned sorrowfully to face the sailor. "How long?" he questioned softly. His voice was hoarse and frail.

The boy was slightly perplexed by Todd's sudden vulnerability.

"I can't say for sure, sir. Only the wind knows, but once we have reached River Thames, I'd say two days at most before we dock at London's port."

Sweeney frowned at this. The longer it took, the more patience was lost. _Could a simple child understand that the fate of his family was tested with each moment he remained on the god-damn ship?!_

After much persuasion, Todd reluctantly returned to his cabin.

But each and every passing day was spent in the same manner. Todd would forsake Anthony's company, early in the morn, and cling to the railings side until the distance between the ship and strip of land was no more. And once they had reached English soil, all that was left was the sailing of River Thames

He could almost taste the filth of London from the mouth of the river. Thames, upon reaching contact, was notably murkier, sullied by the pollution of apathetic Londoners. The world was truly wondrous, as Anthony had said, and it was a true shame the boy was working at the rope, for he could not behold another wonder of the world: The overall cruelty of humanity. What better place to observe such immorality than London, England?

It was then that Sweeney changed his position on deck to that of the forward bow. After the second day of travel upon the Thames, the man embarked for the upper deck even earlier than usual. In fact, Anthony had just tiredly embraced the warmth of his bunk as Todd determinedly fled his cabin. Before succumbing to his exhaustion, Anthony vowed to join his companion above deck after an hour or two of sacred sleep.

And that's exactly what he did.

It took much stamina to simply peel his eyes open, eventually, though; Anthony was able to crawl away from the sheets, warmed by his body, and throw on his boots. The sting of cold air was common.

He pulled on his jacket and clambered sleepily up to the deck. At first he was surprised at the absence of Sweeney from the aft deck of the boat, soon discovering that he had relocated to the bow and darkly studied its shadowed terrain.

London was just as Anthony had remembered: a city of life and production. He warmly noted the tall London Bridge and gazed in awe as men staggered about the decks around him. The ship bobbed past clutters of buildings and if one squinted, they could see clusters of people amongst the vague landscape. He had always loved London, what was once his hometown. He doubted his family remained, perhaps his good mother, but his sisters were no doubt scattered about the map.

A soft melody escaped the sailor's lips as he stepped forward and lost himself to the town of wonder. He sang of the world that surrounded each and every one of them, depicting the places that he had chosen to be his favorites. Among them were the great mountains of Peru and Dardanelles near the great land of Turkey. But above all, London, he sang, was his true love, without a trace of doubt.

And to his true shock, Sweeney stepped forward, sharply in manner, and joined his light melody with that of his own. His voice, harsh and brisk, put the sailor's song to shame with its dark and almost melancholy pitch.

The man observed London, lacking in the same joy of Anthony. He stared at the land as one would stare at something repulsive, with disdain that had the power to kill. Anthony could not even catch his own breath after a moment of studying his friend, the scorn in the man's gaze was lethal.

Todd's words, entwined by a soft sigh of misery, spoke of the disgust of London and her citizens, falling to a faint whisper as he, once again, assure Anthony that the boy would soon see things from his perspective.

Anthony stared, dumbfounded at his companion, barely realizing that they had stepped upon London land and began to descend down streets, overflowing with rodents and streaks of grime. Without bidding any other men goodbye, even his own cabin, the two paused for a moment as Sweeney Todd observed his homeland, the city that had banned him from all of his blessed comforts.

His angered expression soon melted to that of sorrow as he then sang, a soft lullaby, of his secret past. The boy would not understand, but if he did not release the words of his beloved Lucy once, he would burst.

The boy furrowed his brow at the man's obscured words. He spoke of a barber with no other reason to live than his cherished beloved, and from the looks of it, Todd was pained by either the song itself or the hidden meanings of his song.

The pained expression could only fall even more at Anthony's question. "Did the woman you mentioned succumb?"

With a last, mournful sigh, he admitted the truth: He had not the slightest idea if the "barber's wife" lived or not, nor was he aware of his own child's security. He had stepped off of the Bountiful as the dawn of a new morning approached, a morning of truths he feared to know, questions he mostly wished could never be answered.

It was not possible his darling Lucy had faired without him unless she had remarried, he knew this all too well. And would Lucy have allowed her precious daughter to be ripped from her arms and into the arms of the judge? What could have happened to her? And what of his Johanna?

These were the questions, these were ones in which he feared the honest truth.

But, like each morning in prison, the days he had suffered in solitary, the nights he had struggled to sleep in a longboat, he realized that the day was approaching, and he had to face it with all the strength he could possibly possess.

First, however, he had to take care of something…

"I wish to thank you, Anthony." He used the child's name in praise, with respect. The boy smiled broadly and glided towards the man's side. "If it weren't for you, I'd be," he paused, realizing that he would have been dead, "_lost_."

Nodding courteously, the boy's eyes sudden widened in sudden apprehension. "In reward, I should like to see you again, sir." He quickly added, "If that is alright."

Stone floor seemed to have caught Mr. Todd's eye. "Very well, then…I suggest you look for me around here…" He returned his gaze to the foggy streets and chillingly glared at its scarce occupants. Only prostitutes and drunks would be awake at this early hour. "Look for me on Fleet Street."

Upon stating his home address, Anthony warmly offered his hand towards his month-long friend. One would think he would have gotten to know a man's character over such a long period of time. He had not.

"Until then, my dear friend."

Darkly disregarding Anthony's hand, Todd, madly entranced by his destination, began walking forward.

Stupidly, Anthony remained with his hand outstretched and wordlessly watched the man disappear into the darkness, nearly as black as the soul that rested within.

Only after a minute or so, Anthony turned in hopes of seeking a comfortable inn and perhaps, if lucky, he would gain some sleep. He would then see London and familiarize himself with the land that Todd had constantly claimed to have been the land of refuse, of malicious filth.

London was a different world to Sweeney Todd. The streets had become gloomier, there were more prostitutes and drunkards than he could remember. His footsteps sounded hallow; an ominous sound. Perhaps his naiveté had banned such imperfections from his innocent eyes; maybe his family had served as a proper distraction from it all. He soon decided that it was both he and London that changed, both for the worse.

He had Botany Bay to thank for his discretion.

Men slurred words, women shrieked in high-pitched giggles, a girl could be heard screaming in terror, a male slumbered peacefully upon a strip of dirtied walkway; this was what the glorious city was reduced to? Todd sneered in disgust.

As he marched though winding ways, past undesirables and the court house in which he was fatefully sentenced, the grey sky began to grow lighter. The London sun had never actually shown. Instead, the ghost of the morning rays, like streaks of smoke, lightened the sky as if the entire city had once been lit aflame.

Even after years of torment, he still could remember his home address; the one he had constantly reminded his precious daughter of. 186 Fleet Street, and soon, the remains of his home lay before him.

Mrs. Lovett's sign, engraved in golden letters, were a dull, tarnished color in the day's light. People strolled past it, without a single cast inside of the shop. The absence of hungry pie customers was both a curious and sorrowful thing.

Both dreading what lay before him and the truths that would soon be known, Mr. Todd cut through the lines of citizens and hesitantly approached Mrs. Lovett's shop door. Endearing hope was banned from his mind; he had not the strength to face another disappointment.

But as he reached for the handle of his landlady's doorway, a small fragment of his shattered mind begged that he would be embraced by his golden wife, kissed by his excitable child, and wallow in the laughter and joys he had been deprived of for so long.

Imagination, he realized, was never truly credible.

He recalled, as he swung open the creaking door, that the first thing he had remembered about Mrs. Lovett, when discussing her with his daughter, was the way in which her deep, brown eyes had pierced him and seemed to stare into his entire soul.

And the moment he entered Mrs. Lovett's pie shop, those deep, brown eyes were the first thing he saw.

**I cannot begin to tell you how happy I am to have both Mrs. Lovett and Mr. Todd together at last! This chapter, very long, I admit, was so…tempting, I nearly wrote a mock imitation of Titanic's "I'm the King of the World!" when Sweeney was on the bow, observing Burton's London. **

**So, I hope you, my dear readers, have had happy holidays and that your new year is both bright and enjoyable. All I ask is for your reviews, and you will have made **_**my**_** new year bright and enjoyable. **

**Thanks again, I shall try to update shortly!**


	29. Chapter 29

**Chapter 29**

**Mrs. Lovett's Meat Pie Emporium**

The eyes stared at him for a moment, both red-rimmed and weary as they soared into his own. Such eyes paralyzed him from movement, as they did her, for she had stopped her rhythmic cutting at a doughy substance and froze on the spot. It was like they were both entranced by the other, as if the world had ceased to spin or even exist.

"Bless me heart, a customer!" she exclaimed, stabbing the cutting board with vicious movements.

But as soon as Mrs. Lovett's eyes had widened in excitement, the spell was broken, and Sweeney bolted for the door before it could swing shut behind him.

It took nearly all of his strength to not mutter a curse, for Mrs. Lovett had advanced upon him, like predator upon prey, and clutched at the arms of his jacket. With the strength of any grown man, she hauled him over to a forsaken bench and shoved him into it. Lacking even a flick of her wrist, she had pressed him into a chair and closed the shop's front door, the clicking sound sending waves of despair throughout the man like never before.

Todd gaped at her, wide eyed, and kept his lips squashed together as the baker began to rummage around her shop for various ingredients, producing a fowl smelling meat pie along with stale liquor of which she dropped upon his table with a clatter.

Judgment, on Mr. Todd's behalf, was a learned gift. He had acquired it throughout many years of distrustful characters and lethal predicaments--predicaments that he had escaped with only the little bit of life left within him.

It did not take much prudence when it came to observing one of Mrs. Lovett's meat pies, pushing the "food" away, and never daring a single glance at it for fear of catching impending death.

As the baker continued to ramble, she confessed to the ill quality of her goods, swearing that they were, "The worst pies in all of London."

On several occasions, Sweeney raised his hand like a schoolboy, hoping to slip a word in between her frenzied rampages of which she only paused when taking a quick breath. Her attention was occupied by her work, and so a conversation would have to wait.

She did, though she thought she had not been noticed, study Mr. Todd with burning intensity. Mr. Todd acted as if he had not noticed, but he had begun to feel rather uncomfortable, if that was even possible.

After attempting to take a bite of pie, the frantic Mr. Todd could only nod in agreement and eye the floor for a spot to spit the crumbled substance.

The taste burned his mouth, somewhat of a repugnant mix between rotten meat and soggy mold. When the woman's back was turned at the counter, Sweeny spat the pie onto the floor and wiped the remnants of pie from his lips.

The vile flavor still remained.

Mrs. Lovett continued talking, moving this and confessing to that, daring him to try another pie.

And after all of her rambling, she decided it best that she resorted to pity. "Times is hard," she swore, swatting at a critter that had decided to burrow into a heap of powder. The bug was crushed beneath her rolling pin, and she stared at the gory mess in a subdued, satisfied manner.

In the mean time, Sweeney Todd was doing all he could not to vomit after swigging at the ale she had left for him. True, he had consumed his fair share of poor alcohol within the penal colony, but this ale left his throat both parched and did nothing to banish or even obscure the taste of mold from his tongue.

He had not even spent a mere five minutes in the woman's company , yet she had succeeded in poisoning him and maddening him to no end with her chirpy voice and fanatical speeches.

The silence, though, was brief until Mrs. Lovett, brandishing her rolling pin like a weapon, said, "That ale's goin' to need a bit more 'elp when it comes to washing _my_ pie down. How 'bout some gin, eh?"

The woman abandoned her rolling pin and began her advance down a small hallway, patting powder from her dress, clearing her throat when the thick substance tickled her nose.

Sweeney had no other option but to follow. She had not waited for his response.

He trudged down the hallway in pursuit of Mrs. Lovett who, to his utter surprise, had remained quiet for well over two minutes.

Observing the walls around him, his eyes caught familiar sight: The stairway that led to both his and his family's rooms. No doubt, the peeling walls and aged appearance signified that no one had used the rooms since his absence. A part of him wished he could rush up the stairs and tear through the rooms until finding something--an article of clothing, one of his wife's hairbrushes--that he could bring to his nose and inhale their faded scent. There had to be an ounce of tangible proof that this run-down place had once been his sanctified home, and its angelic inhabitants had once remained.

The two entered Mrs. Lovett's parlor room, a sensible area for women of the day. Trinkets rested, preserved on oak shelves, their faces still and pale, comfortable, plush loveseats reclined against a wall, and in more than one area, a plump chair rested by the small fireplace. Ashes adorned the hearth.

"Ah, love, yeh like the cheery wallpaper?" Mrs. Lovett inquired while pouring a tumbler of gin for her and her guest. "Suppose luck was on my side the day the chapel burned down, " she handed him a glass and winked, "only partly singed, yeh see."

He dodged a glance at her before circling the clutter space. A small chair caught his gaze and he sat down, hissing a groan of pain as he lowered himself onto the seat_. Damned knees_.

Mrs. Lovett, though she tried to hide, observed the man through misty eyes until his stone gaze rested on a sparking piece of firewood. She then brought herself onto a chair and traced the rim of her glass with her forefinger.

"Why don't yeh rent out those rooms upstairs if time's are so hard?" he asked after a moment of still.

She opened her mouth in reply, but suddenly thought to herself. _Why should one man care about her income? Why is it that he looked around her house with misery fresh in his gaze?_

Leaning in towards him, she began to speak, heart beating throughout her entire body. She knew this man, their eyes would not have locked on each other if she had not known him. But the question was: why did this man remind her so much of...?

"Even if I offered room and board up there," she said with a glance upward, "People wouldn't go near 'em. And I don't blame them."

One sentence, and the man's interest was hers.

"Why?" he asked. His brows rose as he inched forward in his chair. The movement was close to inconspicuous, but Mrs. Lovett's keen eye caught sight of it with ease.

"Oh, people think its haunted, and who am I to say they're wrong?"

The man averted his gaze to the glass of gin, swooshing it around and admiring the way the alcohol swayed inside of its glass confinements. It was a capable distraction, but the oncoming question could not be avoided. He had to know.

"What about this place make's people think...its haunted?"

Mrs. Lovett scrunched her brow_. Perhaps her suspicions were for naught; maybe this man was a simple traveler with no knowledge of her home and its tragic past. _

In spite of her thoughts, she managed a word, and the word transformed into a sentence, spoken aloud after the years of unbearable silence. She had not wished to speak, but this was her moment of truth and she would have it. The peculiar man's reaction would speak far louder than he would, she knew this to be true.

"Many years ago," she began after a sip at her glass, "a barber and his wife lived upstairs. Happy li'l couple with a one year ol' babe to look after," she rasped a sigh, "until the poor bloke was carted off to prison by a judge who coveted the man's wife."

Revealing nothing, Todd gaped at the fire's crackling flames and remained fixated on them. Mrs. Lovett tore her gaze from the side of his face and continued.

"Well, the bloke," she wheezed a lethargic chuckle, "or better yet, Benjamin Barker, remained in prison--"

"What was his crime?" Todd interrupted, eyes still dancing in the flames.

Mrs. Lovett pursed her lips. "Foolishness," she snapped, as if it were an insult.

And the man, taking it as if it had been, folded his hands, still holding the cup, and jerked his head up and down.

Satisfied, the baker picked up at the beginning of her tale--at least, where she had last left off. Sentiment was absent in her voice as the story dragged on.

"The barber's wife, a pretty thing, stayed shut up for days on end, sobbin' and all. After months of the judge tryin' to court her, she received an honorary invitation to the judge's home. Normally, she would 'ave refused, but the judge knew 'ow to bring 'er to him: by promising 'er husband's return."

Sweeney, the tremble in his hands jolting the glass, wished to do nothing other than slam his palms to his ears and leave the ending to the story obscured. Reality taunted him with the truth that he once so desperately sought, and it was that same reality that Sweeney begged to wish away and never face again. Confidence had forsaken him, and to even his shock, he was beginning to long for it.

"She accepted his invite and rushed to his 'ouse," raising a brow, she added," with the Beadle as her escort."

Todd's reaction was just as she had expected. He clutched his gin with hazardous force, his lip curled into a snarl, and his eyes narrowed. The fire glinting in his gaze was enthralling.

_It had to be him! Johanna had been right!_

"Of course, the judge had thrown a ball, a masquerade, in a fancy way o' speakin', and the poor thing, confused and alone, began to drink. She plopped on one of 'em chairs, after a few sips, and that's where the judge found 'er."

Slamming his body into the chair's back, Todd could only pray that the story would end, that Fate would not have ruined only his life, but his wife's as well. He knew what was to happen, but could he believe it?

His hands unclenched in hopelessness, then crunched together in anxiety.

The scene before him danced in front of his eyes: drunken folk, champagne bubbling from their glasses, women screeching their laughter, hearty men chuckling, a man adorned in a suit of black velvet, a blonde angel cast upon a solitary chair, silently begging for her husband as she looks upon the masked terror.

"And 'e did what most men would do in a situation like such, ravagin' 'er as people gaped and laughed. They thought it to be a bloody good show, they assumed she was mad, only it was 'e who was mad...with lust."

Shrieks clouded the man's mind, like the sounds of gunfire to his ears or a dying man's moans of distress. He could see the people, faces masked with molds of vibrant colors, gathering around a loveseat where his Lucy--his beloved, his wife--lay, taken by a man that was not her husband, by a monster that had only his intentions of releasing the desire, and breaking an innocent.

"The rest of 'em just watched; watched and laughed."

He could hear her screaming, his wife, her voice raw and hoarse. She was crying for him, her husband, and where was he? Thousands of miles away, being carted to his inevitable death as she lay, bleeding upon a Judge's chair.

Bloody, broken, alone; without her defender, her love, her _Benjamin_.

Lucy's screams melded into his own as he shot to his feet and held his open hands into the air. But no matter how far he reached to grasp Lucy, he could not touch her, he could not grasp her, he could not hold her. She faded into oblivion, leaving him, arms-outstretched, with tears pooling in his eyes. His hand wavered and collapsed against his side.

"Please," he begged, choking back the water in his voice, "would no one show her mercy?"

Instead of an answer, calm, sympathetic, and mournful, Mrs. Lovett jumped to her feet as well. She would have stepped forward too, if the moment was not as solemn as it had become. "It _is_ you," she said, almost breathless, "Benjamin Barker!"

It seemed as if he had not heard her exclamation. Without meeting the woman's eyes, he slowly swiveled around to face his body towards her's. "Where is my wife?" he rasped. Their gazes met, brief at first, his eyes dulling as her own brightened with realization. "Where 's my Lucy?"

The question did take its full affect after a minute of frantic thought. Mrs. Lovett huffed as she plummeted back into her chair, the thinking causing an ache in her frazzled head.

_His wife? Where _had _she gone? _

And then, like a slap of memories into her mind, she recalled the fateful night she had begged for a mad woman's life, and stolen a moment of sacred reunion with her guest's lone daughter. Thoughts clicked into their proper place, and she spoke with true grievance in her tone.

She may have loathed Lucy Barker, wishing for her to be whisked away with the winds of time, but never had she ever longed for the women's death.

"Mr. Barker," she said and then grimaced at the sentence's formality, "Benjamin..."

There was a weighty pause and still, the look of consuming sorrow could not be banned from the male's vulnerable gaze. A tear dangled, near the point of plummeting down to trail the man's ghastly cheek.

"Your wife has died."

Sweeney's brow scrunched, his eyes shuttered closed. "How?" he managed to rasp.

Mrs. Lovett, astounded by her guest's heartache, found words to be particularly hard to grasp, let alone speak.

"How?!" Mr. Todd demanded, his eyes shooting open. The growl that strengthened his speech made the baker start.

"The Judge," Lovett sputtered. After a calming breath, she dared meet the man's eyes and finish what had been started. "After the night of the ball, Lucy came home, a right mess."

The woman, now that Lovett thought about it, had arrived home in a frazzled state. Lucy, her dress disheveled and her face bloody, had clutched to Mrs. Lovett's shirt and, through her unfathomable suffering, had croaked the night's nightmarish events. Even now, the baker could remember how the woman's voice shook, gravelly from screaming, her lips bruised where the judge had bitten her.

Afterward, the frantic Lucy had torn the house apart looking for her baby, and when Johanna was nestled in her arms, a terrifying calm washed over her. Lucy rocked the small Johanna well into the night, as if nothing had ever happened, and when she placed the sleeping babe in her crib, she whisked herself away to the nearest apothecary. Her purchase that night, the baker remembered, was that of arsenic, and though she pleaded, begged, and prayed that Lucy would not sip the poison, the blonde smiled, a mournful expression, kissed her baby on her brow, whispering, "I am so sorry, my little sweet."

Mrs. Lovett, spoke. "She downed arsenic that night, and went mad the next. She wouldn't listen to me...I did try...Lucy had gone insane, but she had not died."

Once the arsenic had slipped down her throat and a scream escaped her lips, Mrs. Lovett had demanded that Lucy drop the bottle. The woman had unclenched her fist, producing the bottle, now half drained of its contents. It slipped from her grasp and shattered to the floor. Glass scattered throughout the room, under the bureau and beside the baby's bed. There was a moment of silence, broken by the cries of an awakened Johanna, soon joined by the horrific gasps of a dying mother. Lucy collapsed to the floor, no longer grasping her baby's crib, and slipped her fingers through the grating, caressing her daughter's wet, flushed face one last time. Several minutes of convulsions took place, until the still of certain death had taken its icy grip on the ill-fated woman.

Throughout it all, Mrs. Lovett had remained in the doorway, terrified to move an inch, but finally doing so when the woman's sluggish breathing had returned. Lucy Barker's eyes remained dimmed after the arsenic, a filmy substance clouding her eyes, as if the soul of the once radiant woman was trapped inside. The coating soon faded, leaving her pupils dilated and her eye color changed to a ghastly light blue.

Months had passed, but Lucy remained oblivious to her daughter, her landlady, the absence of Benjamin, the town, and even time itself. Mrs. Lovett had her propped in the guest room's bed until the burden of caring for a sick, deranged woman had become too much to bear. Observing Lucy's skin hang gauntly from her bones, her flesh turn a pale yellow, her hair lose its sheen and fade to grey, was only a detriment to her job and a surplus of agony to the torture of watching an angel fade. She desperately sought a doctor, losing the woman to a hospital in Bedlam rather than a healthy treatment or antidote.

Soon, she was cast from the almshouse and onto the streets where, for the duration of her life, she would wander aimlessly, singing the song that had played on the night of her rape like a comforting lullaby. Once in a while, Mrs. Lovett would take her in and slip her a meat pie, conversing in light tones of Johanna and even her own identity. In response, Lucy sent the woman a blank gaze and cackled ruthlessly at the sight of a familiar customer walking down the street. The joyful young Lucy, now a prostitute, a whore of which men handled with repulsion and sometimes desperation.

The thoughts of the baker had carried her mind away from the present. Shaking her head, she picked at the pieces of her shattered phrases and returned to telling the fateful news to an aggrieved husband.

"Judge Turpin 'ad 'er taken to Newgate prison." A wave of fresh hurt came with the remainder of the recollection. "After Johanna realized who she was."

Questioning, Todd scanned the woman's face. "Johanna?"

"Your daughter...she...Lucy told Johanna 'er name, yeh see. I saw it all 'appen, and poor Johanna was sobbin' a great deal," unnatural tears pricked her eyes, "and the Judge 'eard it all. 'ad your wife sent to prison and declared she would be publicly 'ung a week later." The glass clattered as she dropped it onto a nearby table. She pressed a hand to her head and spoke almost to herself, "I went to the execution out of respect, Mr. Barker. Lucy," she sighed shakily, "...she died peacefully and all; real quick..."

Mr. Todd gasped a dry sob and straightened abruptly at the foreign sound. Never before had he cried--at least not since the death of his former self. Tears, he felt, were useless. If there was anything he ever pondered over when it came to the reason of something's existence, set aside the filth that people had the audacity to call London, it was the pointlessness of crying. It did not nothing for him when he was a con, and now, though he felt he could do nothing but sink to the floor and weep like the doomed, listless Benjamin Barker, tears would be ludicrous.

Truth did its job at ripping his heart, as if physically, from his chest. His wife, raped, with a sniggering crowd as her audience, and killed, with the same spectators smirking their satisfaction at the death of an undesirable. And mercy was never offered nor shown. Why was it that he was appalled by the news? Did Botany Bay not do its job at showing him the terrors of the unmerciful?

His virtuous spouse, defiled and hung...Even that reality still held the air of a lie, a vindictive joke meant to stir even the coldest depths of his heart.

_He would kill them all, every bastard that stared at the scene with mirth, every loathsome, dog that had condemned his love to die._

Out of the teary dread in the man's eyes, determination sparked his gaze. He could not mourn, not yet. Lucy was his life, he had learned that over their short, savored marriage. But there was more to his family, thus an accumulation to his weighty concern.

"And what of Johanna?" he could only whisper. Articulating a single sentence in his usual, gruff voice would only betray the emotion behind his words--which were strained enough to begin with.

"The Judge adopted her, raised her like his own, " Mrs. Lovett said.

Irritation made his lip twitch. "Yes, yes, I am well aware, but is she _alright_?"

The woman looked Todd up and down, almost baffled by the way he disregarded his daughter's whereabouts. How was he "well aware" that his daughter was the Judge's ward? She hissed a sigh, and handled her beverage once again. The gin did nothing to ease the burning curiosity, though it still managed to cake her throat with its substantial tang.

"Is my daughter alright?" he repeated, each word more venomous and intense than the last. Mrs. Lovett thought it to be either irritation from the day's morose turn of events or true protection over his estranged daughter, though she did prefer the more affectionate choice.

"She's fine, Mr. Barker, but--"

For the second time, he abruptly cut the woman off and added, "It's no longer Barker. Benjamin Barker is dead, now. My name is Sweeney Todd."

The callous words would have taken the breath out of any faint-hearted woman. Mrs. Lovett, though, was not like most, and instead, stared questioningly at Sweeney before continuing her butchered statement. She would grieve the loss of her innocent Benjamin, her infatuation, at another time. There was a promise she had to keep.

"Well, then, Mr._ Todd,_ I must say, Australia hasn't been a walk in Hyde Park for yeh...and there is something I have to tell yeh about--"

"And Sweeney Todd will have his vengeance on the Judge, no matter what the cost may be."

"Yes, truly wonderful! Mr. T, I have to--"

Sweeney turned and shrugged his coat off, throwing it into the corner of the parlor. "Fifteen years of torture, nightmares...with that one hope that I would return to my family...what would have been left of them." He burned the floor with his eyes, a comparison in hot intensity to the fire that crackled merrily behind him.

"Mr. Todd, listen to me!"

"My Lucy..."

At her wit's end, Mrs. Lovett rushed to the ex-con, turned him to face her (squashing the urge to squeal at the contact), and thundered, "Mr. Todd, I have to tell yeh something' about your daughter, dammit!"

Taken aback, Todd snarled, "What is it?" Inside, his stomach churned with dread.

The woman sighed in fatigue. "I'd managed to speak with Johanna after Lucy..." the words had died, she could only fragment the sentence and pray the man understood, "well, I spoke with Johanna and she seemed to have known yeh, Mr. T. She was talkin' 'bout yeh like you'd never left London! I told 'er yeh were gone, but she insisted I give you a message."

His spine straightened, his heart seemed to flutter in a strange emotion; delight, perhaps. "What is it?"

"Oh, so now I 'ave your attention, Mr. Todd?!" she said, rolling her eyes. "Nonetheless, 'ere it is, and remember, I don't know what the bloody hell your girl's talkin' about. Johanna said, 'Tell my father, when 'e arrives home, that I love 'im and I'll always be his Little Lady.'" After straining for the right words, Mrs. Lovett muttered, "then she went on about yeh stayin' somewhere safe and all...the child fretted a bit about that."

Sweeney could no longer withhold the rampage of tears. He, panicked, slipped his fingers to his eyes and applied pressure to his lids until dark spots adorned his shadowed vision. The moist in his eyes seemed to have subsided. The pain had not. Somewhere in this cruel, degrading world, his cherished daughter awaited his rescue, loving him though they had been torn from each other's embrace.

Crying remained meaningless, the hurt seemed to have beckoned his unwanted tears.

When he was composed, the man turned towards the baker. The effort of hiding his pain was noble, the results were pitiful.

"I want to see it," he said with a upward gesture towards the ceiling. "The room."

Mrs. Lovett knew all too well what he was referring to. The lost husband wished to pace the room where his wife had attempted suicide, the sad father longed to caress the sheets where his child once slept, the dead Benjamin begged to breathe the dusty air and thaw his frozen memories.

Who was she to deny him the right?

"O' course, Mr. Barker," she said, quickly correcting herself, "Mr. Todd, Todd, Sweeney Todd."

His cross expression contorted to that of misery. "My daughter...she will be alright?"

Sympathetic, Mrs. Lovett leaned in towards him and squeezed his hand. His fingers were limp, cold in her own grasp, like the hand of a dead man. In a flash of movement, he slipped his arm from her grip and held it to his side like a wounded animal.

"Come on, love. I 'ave something upstairs for yeh, somethin' I think you'll like very much."

He nodded once and waited for her to take the lead. She brushed against his side, only so she could feel his body against her own, the feel of the leather jacket against her skin. The brief touch captivated her.

The pair abandoned the warm parlor and began their ascent up the stairs to the Barker's room, nearly as dead as the ruined family.

One lingering question taunted the woman as she led her companion up the flight of stairs: How had Johanna predicted her father's return?

**Here you are, everybody. Please leave a review and let me know you're all out there once again! Make my new year whole! And I do hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday as well as a happy new year. **

**-Moonlit Serenity**


	30. Chapter 30

**Chapter 30**

**Fleet Street, London**

Silver.

Oh, the cool feel of metal in his palms once more. The mesmerizing glint that emitted from their polished handles brought a mad glare to his eyes, as bright as the silver that grew warmer with his body's heat. He wanted to press the blades to his lips; they were all he had now. He wanted to knick his skin and stare in delight as the rush of crimson would ooze from the wound and onto the dusty floor of what was once his home. He wanted to see what his razors could accomplish and observe their compelling enticement to the rubies that pledged a rapid, bloody trail.

As promised, Mrs. Lovett had led Mr. Todd to the upstairs room and allowed him entrance to his daughter's forsaken nursery. Distant memories, to him, were like the piercings of an officer's knife to his skin or the crack of a whip against his bare, exposed flesh, but like then and now, he forced the pain to the back of his mind and trailed the barren room. The lone, visible response within the man that indicated feeling was the soft glint of his unshed tears.

His Johanna's carriage was left preserved only by the hand of fifteen year's time. Sullied cloth had been thrown atop of it in order to mask the contents within, peaking Todd's curiosity. He lifted the material and studied the remnants of his child's doll, almost like the ghost of his daughter's innocence molded into an aged toy. The listless eyes, the dirtied porcelain, the tattered clothing; even he was entranced by the compelling terror of it, and when Mrs. Lovett had begun prying wooden planks in the corner of his eye, he was all too glad to release his hold on the cloth, trudging over to the women and kneeling to her level.

The woman murmured a few words, of which he only heard, "Came for the girl…hid 'em."

A pitiful tug at his heart brought fresh ache at the thought of strange men, bursting into his home and whisking his helpless, little baby away as her mother lay dying of her own tormenting insanity.

These thoughts then went blank, his mind was wiped clean of reason as Lovett produced an oaken box for him to reach out and grasp. She held it to him as an offering, as if somehow the box's contents were to be the answer to all of his problems, or at least a portion of them.

When he grasped it, a wave of shocking electricity shot up his arms. It left him breathless, thrilled, and elated; he had only felt so ecstatic when he had first held his daughter to him after their reunion. His life was nestled in this box just as his life was once nestled in his arms. He had to open it.

The rusted edges creaked open, ominous in its harsh moans. The sound filled him with liquid heat, recognition. Before even gazing inside, he knew what rested within the box's padded bedding.

And now he knelt before the baker, grasping what little he had left of him to his breast. Razors; sharp, lonely, loyal razors...

It was strange how the blades held such comparison to him and still contained the melancholic aura of his broken family. They too had been shut away for so long and he could feel the taut bonds of adoration binding him to these tools that only he could put to proper use. A part of his family was now sealed in these sanctified razors and he would worship them with the same amount of fervor, no matter what the cost may be.

A soft, lush melody was brought forth through his parted lips, a serenade for his lovely friends. He sang of their duties, his undying worship of their skill, the one motive that had heaved him from his hopeless state and granted him a motive, a gift: the promise of salvation, of revenge.

They paced the room, he and his cutting blades, and their harmonies were united as one, a union never to be broken. _Nothing, _not even the hands of Death, could overcome their bond. Their similar songs had proved that, his blades whispered to him, lulled him, and promised him unending release from his torment when the final drop of a judge's blood had adorned their chaste surface, a lethal contrast of rubies and silver.

"I've come home, we are together, and we'll do wonders, my friends," he declared in his twisted, melodic voice.

From the back of his room, a bothersome addition to their spellbinding song had begun its own tune. Maybe it was the voice of the little reason he had left, persuading him to cease his singing to inanimate objects. Surely he should understand that this was lunacy!

The soft song continued, almost taunting in its winding, feminine sound.

"I'm your friend too, Mr. Todd," it sang.

Gritting his teeth, Todd banished the aggravating voice from his mind and drowned it with the song of his own, of his new friends. Be he mad or psychotic, at least his razors supplied him with the long denied comfort he yearned for. Not even reason could deny him that right.

After he knelt to the floor once more and gave the blade one last caress with his forefinger, the razor gave a distorted reflection of his forgotten company, Mrs. Lovett. So that was the source of the maddening voice!

The woman, infatuated with the forbidden contact, had presently busied herself with familiarizing her ardent senses to the man's scent. She buried her face into his thick mat of hair and inhaled its smell. Her nose burned in delight at the smell of the sea upon his scalp, and she ran her lips on each wiry strand of his ebony hair. It ran slick against her lips, leaving his taste on her tongue.

Sweeney's head swiveled only slightly to the side after the slight ruffle in his hair. His expression scrunched together in a look of superior scorn towards the unwanted intruder. "Leave me, now," he whispered; a brisk, curt sound.

The command held no other option for Mrs. Lovett but obedience. Her body ached as she stood to her full level and strut to the room's door, hand pressed upon its knob. Wrist turning to swing it open, Mrs. Lovett became fixated upon the silence around her, soon vanishing as a declaration to the open air stole her breath and thought.

"At last, my arm is complete again!"

Soft, tremulous sighs flew from the deep core of her chest. His voice, after so long, had finally broken the spell that had been long cast upon her home; the curse of silence. Todd's declaration of revenge was a terrifying, wonderful sound that even she could not summon a conclusion to. She did not want to. Sometimes reality was better left unsolved.

But Mrs. Lovett was a woman of unwavering curiosity and, truth be told, obstinacy. A particular question had been nagging at her conscience for months on end and now, she thought, was the opportune moment to approach the delicate subject. Perhaps she could put an end to her rampage of internal inquiries if she asked her question—to hell with the consequences.

"Mr. T?" she said, hand leaving the door knob, body turning to face him.

The man scowled in displeasure. "Did I not tell you to leave, Mrs. Lovett?"

"Yeh did…but I didn't listen." Her chin jutted out.

"I see that quite clearly," he growled.

"Mr. T, I want to ask yeh something and all I want is an honest answer, my love."

"Will you leave afterwards?"

"Without even a second thought, dearie."

The short nod of his head was of abidance.

Mrs. Lovett sighed again, inched toward the man's back, and ran her eyes over his thin form. How an innocent man survived the horrors of a penal colony was beyond her most daring imaginations. "Well, Mr. T, when I spoke to your little daughter 'bout yeh, she hinted that yeh were to come 'ere. She said she knew yeh were sent away and asked me to give yeh a room upon your return."

Irked by the delicateness of the topic, Todd swung to face the baker and stepped forward. "Yes, she did. What of it?"

Furrowing her brow, the woman answered his step with one of her own. They now stood, face to face, even though a wave of panic increased her heart's temp, not at the menacing stance of the ex-convict, but the simple thought of tortures the man must have faced to have changed his warm, brown eyes dark and brutal, his soft, golden-brown curls into a wild mane of blackness, his rosy cheeks into ghastly, pale, hallowed ones.

Her hesitance was exasperating, even to herself. Without further delay, she spoke. "Mr. Todd, 'ow did your girl know that yeh were to return?"

The man, doing well to hide his surprise at the question, resorted to anger. "Perhaps it was hope that her father would return, Mrs. Lovett. Maybe she dreamed of the day I would come home!"

"Mr. T," she said, placing her hands on her hips, "yeh can't expect me to simply take that for an answer and leave yeh be, now can yeh? Come now, be honest. Yeh even said yeh were well aware she lived with Turpin."

The man swallowed the growing lump in his throat and felt his fists begin to pulsate.

"How could yeh 'ave known Johanna lived with that rotten Judge if you was miles away in the bloody dessert?"

Cursing his stupidity, Sweeney grimaced and clutched his friend in a grip that made his hand strain. "Listen well, Mrs. Lovett. That is none of your concern. I assumed she was with Turpin," he spat the name, "because I was not greeted by _my_ near grown daughter upon arrival in this shit-hole town. Who else would covet my child other than the man who coveted my own wife?"

Her gaze deep, Mrs. Lovett looked the man from head to toe. She then grimaced and shook her head. It was obvious; the man did not trust her. "You're lyin' to me, Mr. Todd, I know it. Both yeh and your daughter…somehow…know each other and…" Her speech ran dry and the words fell away.

Deflated, the baker swiveled towards the door. "We'll go to the market, after we get yeh settled in, and promote your barbershop." She swung the door open with sullen movements, but froze before flinging herself from the room to her own shop. "Let me know if yeh need _anythin'."_

For the remainder of the day, a downcast Mrs. Lovett beat the dough with a vindictive force that only she could receive pleasure from.

She had no inkling that upstairs, in a barren room haunted with the air of destroyed lives, a devastated man cradled a child's raggedy, forgotten doll to his chest and whispered soft words of adoration. He rocked it, with the tender care of a parent, well into the darkness of night. And even when the next morning had arrived, his clutch on the doll had not lost its desperate grip.

His heart, though, was as worn as the toy.

**The Turpin Mansion**

So soft was the threatening tap of approaching boots that Johanna, while in her dazed state, had not even heard them enter her room and approach her window seat. Once the hand of her intruder had grasped her shoulder and wrenched her to her feet, she had become aware that there was another in her company, unwanted as it may have been. The delay in her recognition was irksome, even her minor troubles fell away to pure terror at the horrific realization of her position. The hand could only belong to one of two men, none of which would ever be of her choosing.

With great reluctance, she studied the face of her assailant and stifled a cry at the sight of the Beadle. Turpin had at least showed her an ounce of control when in her presence. Bamford, on the other hand, was all too demanding when alone with her.

She held her breath and shrugged away from his grip, an action regarded with nothing short of spite. The man only heaved her entire body away from the curtained window and began to drag her to the center of the room.

Thinking that he was destined for the bed, Johanna struggled against his hold and he, for the second time since her arrival, covered her mouth with his plump hand. Her body was pressed against his, her back to his chest and her head against the crook of his neck. The iron arm that wrapped around her stomach pinned her hands to her sides. He seemed to enjoy whatever feeble vigor she had left within her, the pleasure increasing as she fell limp in hold and cried stifled sobs of weakness.

"You really do need to learn when to keep your mouth shut, little birdie," he whispered into her ear. The answering shiver in her body, this time, brought an unpleasant smirk to his lips. "Do you know what I'm talking about?"

She nearly sobbed with twice the desperation. How was she to answer his question?

"Do you?!" He jolted her body and snorted a giggle at her muffled shriek.

Her head, swimming with panic, jerked a shaky gesture in response.

"How's about I clarify what I mean, little girl?" His lips pressed against her ear. "You were with the judge yesterday, sitting at the dining room table, not touchin' your food like the pathetic imp you are. And when the judge asked what was wrong, what did you say?"

The girl's heavy breathing came rapid through her nose.

"You said you couldn't sleep and you looked right at _me_! Are you that much of a fool as to hint our relations to Judge Turpin so easily? I swear if you mutter a peep about this confrontation or any other time, I'll refer you to a mental asylum! Would the pretty birdie like to be locked away with mad, raving lunatics?!"

A tear made its sluggish trail down her cheek. Her body had turned to stone and she no longer attempted to call for assistance. Who would really come for her, anyway?

"I think not. An asylum keeper would be a bit more forceful than me or the judge or any other man, so keep your tongue in your cheek."

His hand soon wondered from her pinned arms to the flat of her stomach. The touch lingered there, where the pulse of her hammering heart could easily be felt through the thin, plush fabric of her day gown. A choked whimper was heard from the back of her throat as his lips travelled to her bare shoulder and caressed the paled skin.

Once his menial desires had been embellished, the Beadle released his hold on her and pushed her from him. She stumbled slightly and gaped at the man with teary eyes, placing her hands in front of herself in a pathetic form of defense. Amusement made his eyes twinkle with malicious mirth; to have such control was almost an unfamiliar, yet enthralling sentiment to him.

He was not close to ending this.

"Now, my dear, you'll do as I say, won't you? I should truly be offended if you were to disregard my wishes."

Pure venom spilled from her open gaze, the fire darkening her eyes. Even the Beadle felt an impulse to step backwards from the girl and her hazardous gaze, the way in which her fists curled and her eyes narrowed to slits.

The Beadle crushed the brief fear with fists of indifference. What could a silly girl such as Johanna do to him?

To test his power, the man took a sudden step towards her, arms outstretched as if to grab her again. The smirk of satisfaction contorted his features the moment she whimpered a cry and fell against the surface of her window. The hate in her gaze was not banned, but it did comingle with the child's profound terror.

The girl seemed to have held an ounce of strength that even the judge had not seen. Small as it may have been, that vigor must have been the source of her willpower. No, they could not have this. An ounce of strength was a simple storage, but it was a powerful one, nonetheless. He had to break her, to watch her suffer with the authority of any judge or any god.

"Sit down," he ordered, his words brisk. Curt as the command may have been, the way in which he held himself, held upright by invisible superiority, left her with no other choice.

She resulted to compliance and slipped into the window seat.

"Good girl," he said, patting her head like a taunting parental figure. "Now, open the curtains and look outside."

The way she looked at him; a mix of utter disbelief and repulsion towards the simple task at hand. Whether it was resistance that placed hesitance in her spirit or true terror of the outside world, the Beadle did not know. Either way, though, he was determined to receive what he demanded, whatever the cost.

Leaning in towards Johanna, he eyed her once and repeated the command. His voice did not waver once and held more authority she had ever heard in her entire life, the sound frightening her beyond defiance. "_Open_…_the curtains_…and _look outside_." He spoke slow and spat each word with the hatred of only the most spiteful of individuals.

Johanna jerked her head into a nod and parted the curtains, her fingers trembling as the dreaded light burned her eyes. Even if the sky was plagued with clouds, the light of day still triumphed over the darkness of her prison. If the Beadle was not there, leering before her with her impending downfall as his only victory, she would have at least covered her eyes. Tears pricked her face and began to distort her vision with their watery coating.

"Are you aware of the rumors that are being spread about you, girl?" His abrupt change of topic left her baffled and wordless. It was the curiosity of the question that brought shivering panic to her body, not the threat of pointless gossip revolving around her.

"No, sir," she whispered before the Beadle could open his mouth and scream the question in her face.

He sighed, though the sound seemed to be mocking, even playful. "Well that's simply not a good answer, Johanna. The rumors, my beloved, concern you and your," he paused, "unethical behavior."

Resentment heated her blood like water brought to a hasty boil.

"The judge was able to withstand the rumors concerning you and your peculiar absence. Once the men took notice of your disappearance, much gossip came with it. The most enjoyable was the judge's pretty ward had gone off to boarding school," he mused. His perverse grin fell into a thin grimace. "But the latest rumors of the judge's ward, screaming every night like a bloody lunatic, have got him a bit more concerned. It would seem that these damned nightmares you've been having are leading the public to believe things…things the judge does not want them to know."

Johanna took an involuntary wince to her face at the thought of others hearing a helpless girl in such a state, and no one bothering to help. Perhaps now she understood her father's grim outlook on the world…

"But I've come up with a solution, I have." He brought his hand to her face and twisted her head until she looked upon the outside world, eyes widening with long suppressed wonder.

For months on end, she had longed to capture a stolen glimpse of the world that was once her oasis of hope. She had seen unfathomable hatred and mistrust, yet the love a father seemed to have crushed all negative aspects she had once held. Love was dominant over any hatred she had known; hope was a beacon of light when the darkness of fate enveloped all that seemed left of who she was.

"You are to look outside, girl, and you are goin' to put a pretty li'l smile on your pretty li'l face. I want these ridiculous rumors to end…and I don't care how miserable it makes you. No one will ever give a damn about a slut such as you."

The disgraceful insult brought a flush to her cheeks. She stared outside, meeting some of the citizens' gazes with false smiles of cheer, much to the approval of Bamford, who had recently placed himself against the opposite wall. His eyes drank in her thin frame, her reveling dress, and the smooth locks that tumbled into her face. From all the way across the room, he could detect her fluorescent smell with ease. He had Turpin to thank for this one, he was sure of that.

Men stopped short in their tracks at the sight of the judge's stunning ward, breathtaking even in her miserable state, tainted with the forced smiles and falling eyes.

"Sing," the Beadle demanded. "Sing and let them all hear how happy our precious Johanna is!"

Tears slipped from her eyes as she opened her lips. Her song could barely overcome the constrictions of her throat, thick with sorrow. The words came out as a cracked, disgusting sound that she could not take pleasure in or bless with sentiment.

Across the way, the Beadle barked his laughter. "Come now, love, you can do so much better than _that_!"

Irate aggravation pulsed through her heated veins, naught compared to the misery she could not understand or begin to explain. To sing was to sin, in her eyes, if not to God, than to herself.

The cracking of the plump man's, large knuckles were more than a persuasion to the girl. It was a threat.

Her song, strangled of its radiance by the shaky fear in her voice, was a soft, delicate one. Why not sing the song of birds, the song she had first lulled to herself the night of her brutal punishment in the men's barracks. She had met her father after that song; perhaps optimism convinced her that somehow, a good thing would come of that particular melody at this time, just as if had nearly a year ago.

"_Green Finch and Linnet bird, Nightingale Blackbird, how is it you sing_?"

The beadle snorted his amusement with a repugnant purse of his lips. Stupid, little baggage, she was, singing of birds. If he had been in the judge's position, a topic he considered with much envy, he would have never put the miserable, caged creatures in the girl's room to begin with. Now that he was beginning to think, Bamford grinned at other sorts of options he would have taken considering Johanna. Yes, the child would have received rather _different treatment_, had she been his.

But he was not, so the delight that came with the present occurrences would have to be underwent and cherished until their next encounter. _Such a depressing thought_.

"No, my lovely, convict bird, you must sing far louder so the people of London can hear you! Let them hear you!"

She sobbed with double the desperation and her voice, flourishing due to the practice after so many months of ill-use, had begun to take its familiar sound to it, a pitch that held the tone of a church's bell after mourning or the lullaby of a desolated beggar's song.

From the midst of indifferent Londoners, a solitary figure stood, gazing upward into her room. Others males had stared at her before, lust plain in their gaze, yet this person, a young man, she soon realized, was gawking at her, as if she had entranced him with her dejected, deplorable song. Something about this boy, a layer of thin, sandy hair atop his head, held an unfamiliar air to it. His strange differences, though she had just set her gaze on him, were regarded in her own sweet joy. Instead of studying her body, as countless other had, or widening his eyes in temptation as if they could feel her warmth beside them, this boy, a perfect stranger, was looking directly into her _eyes_. Dear God, he was looking into her _eyes_!

"Why have you stopped singing, my dear?" Bamford questioned in his usual, slick voice.

Had she not seen the boy, Johanna would have answered the man's question without hesitation or at least resumed her serenade. She did neither of these things, instead returning the innocent grin of the boy with her own ghost of a smile. How long had it been since she had smiled? She wondered, lost in her own thoughts. Hope was on the street below her window, the care in his gaze all the persuasion she needed.

Without speaking a word, her eyes implored that he see past her façade into the wretched sorrow that was her heart and soul.

_See me. _

If only he would turn down the streets, crying out to the world of the Judge and Beadle's doings. If only people could see her as easily as this simple boy could? If only he would provide a single moment of distraction so she may slip from the house and into the warmth of her true home: 186 Fleet Street.

_See me!_

Hope was on the street below her window.

Johanna kept her gaze locked with the boy's; drinking in his virtue, his ridiculous, instant adoration…her sacred chance to flee from her cage.

The floor to her side gave off a thunderous boom. With a jumpy start, Johanna leapt to her feet and faced the door.

The Judge, leaning in the doorway, wasted no time before asking his outraged question. "What is it that you are having my ward do?"

Scowling in humility, the Beadle muttered, "I thought that the child should sing."

Turpin's features were suddenly darkened with black disdain. "You had her _sing_?"

The Beadle, without a care in the world, made his way to Johanna, sluggishness in his steps. His feet barely lifted from the wood of the floor. He held the girl's chin in a strong grasp, the action forcing her to stare into her guardian's eyes. "Yes, sir, for if she does, than the rumors concerning her will die out, I should think." Beadle Bamford's eyes glowed in an uproar of defiance.

"Well your brilliant idea had led to that miserable cur outside her window!"

Johanna's heart seemed to have plummeted thousands of feet into the coldest depths of helplessness. He had seen the boy…

After a single second of hesitation, the Beadle stole a glance outside the window, shot his eyes away from the scene, and glared at the Judge. "I hardly think that little man will be much of a problem."

Nodding his head, the Judge considered the value of his partner's words. He let his eyes wander around the room with ease, rushing to his ward's flushed cheeks, and then to the Beadle once more. A certain emotion clouded the man's eyes, though Johanna could not seem to put her finger on what it exactly was…Suspicion, perhaps?

"I'll show the boy in," Turpin said. The floor moaned beneath his weight as he turned to do what had been promised.

"Sir," Johanna cried out. Her legs wobbled with pressure after rushing towards her guardian, and her eyes lowered in timid regret once the surprised man had looked at her directly. His gaze was far less sentimental in comparison to the boy's. She nearly sighed at her own thoughts. Did the Judge hold any other emotion other than the blind lust that plagued her during the night or the hatred that had broken her once blissful family? No, to even doubt such would be nonsensical. "You will not hurt the boy?"

The plea may have initiated the thoughts of beating the girl until breathless or perhaps the glimmer of hope in her eyes had. Either way, his raw urge to break her for such betrayal left him livid and even pained. Would she ever understand that every single thing he did was for her?

To satisfy the urge of striking at her, he shoved her to the side with exerted force, nearly knocking her off balance. She stumbled and smashed into a nearby wall, clutching at it as if it would somehow shield her from the horrors around her. Her fingers groped on the painted surface until slowing with dawning reality: No hand was there to hold her own.

The two men departed her room, the Beadle awaiting the judge's departure before pressing his lips to her ear with, yet another, promise of peace in return of her silence. What could she do other than surpass the tears and oblige to his commands? Nothing, she was their caged bird.

And as soon as the men had left her to the company of her prison's still, Johanna fled to the window and fixed her gaze to where the boy had once been.

Crying softly, Johanna grieved the absence of the young man on the paved side of the road. No doubt, he had either abandoned his innocent gawking and went on his way or the Judge had summoned into the building for horrid punishments she could distinctly remember.

If the boy had chosen to enter the Judge's home, her prison, the lion's den, then he would be beaten. She recalled men, whistling into her window, only to be tortured at the hand of the Beadle's cane until their sinful desires were crushed along with their vulnerable bodies. Then they would scamper from the mansion, blood seeping from the hair and onto the stone streets, shoulders lowered in defeat.

She could only sob; sob and pray that the boy had gone along his way and refused the devil's provocation.

He had not.

**Thank you all so much, once again, for commenting. I read them religiously and continue to request more! Once again, thanks and look for the next chapter shortly. I hope to write it as soon as I can.**


	31. Chapter 31

**Chapter 31**

**Turpin's Mansion**

Blood oozed from the open cracks of his head as Anthony, gasping for the air that had been squeezed from his gut, wobbled on all-fours. He squeezed his eyes shut, for it seemed to ease the pain, though the remaining fire in his body overpowered the little comfort. The fist pressed to his chest began to slacken; the world had begun to grow dim.

"Now, little man, I believe you 'eard what Judge Turpin said," the Beadle leered with a poke at the boy's chest using the tip of his cane. For emphasis, he sent a rough kick into Anthony's ribs and, digging his foot into the boy's side, rolled the gasping sailor onto the flat of his back. "Next time, I won't hesitate in splatterin' your pretty brains all over the bugging pavement." Before the man turned back into the side entrance of Turpin's home, he heaved the sailor's bag into the air and sent it sailing across the way, hitting the boy square in his crushed chest. Bamford puckered a grin, the boy's agony was a bloody good show, and disappeared into the blackness of the great Judge's house.

Wheezing and smearing the blood from his eyes, Anthony Hope wobbled away from his assailant in order to ward off any future attacks. His hands balled against the sides of his eyes. Tiny beads of crimson despair slithered into the corners of his vision and distorted it with its creamy, red film.

The thud of the side-door being slammed to its close was a little consolation to Anthony in his deplorable state, more so a threat that the man who had just beaten the very breath out of him could return with twice the vengeful force in his blows.

There was a moment of still that stretched well into a few minutes. After the _tap-tap-tap_ of approaching boots or the aggressive shouts of a portly man and his ominous master had been long absent, Anthony wobbled to a standing position and used the grimy wall as support to lean upon. The filth slipped between his fingers and burrowed beneath his nails.

At least he could stand without fear of being whipped into a submissive position once again.

Though the pain was worse than he had ever dreamt and the wounds dripped with extensive amounts of warm, thick blood, Anthony's thoughts remained presently occupied. His venture into the Judge's home had not been for naught; he had learned a truth that forever changed his life.

The girl's name, the glorious angel that had sent her melancholy song spiraling down to the earthy streets of London, he had learned what it was.

"You gandered at my Johanna," the Judge had accused him only minutes before.

Johanna. The girl's name was Johanna.

As he limped to the end of the darkened walkway, stepping into the streets bursting with strolling citizens, he spared the forbidden window a stolen, cherished glance.

Johanna was gone, but the spell she had tangled him in, like the sweet thread of a spider, remained forever taut. Distant words from his estranged captain rung in his head as if they were the peel of a church's bell. He had said to find a pretty lass, a delightful girl that would replace his silly, if not obsessed devotion to the sea, his home and love.

Anthony had found more than a lass, he knew this to be true. He had found a reason; a reason to fill the void in his heart that had once been bursting with adoration from his now estranged family. Perhaps that was the reason he became so entranced by the girls tragically stunning face, or was there something more?

A man, stopping short upon seeing the sailor, hissed a low curse below his breath. "I'll be damned."

Hope grimaced in embarrassment but otherwise remained indifferent to the gawking townspeople. What mattered was the girl locked away, wishing, waiting, praying for a savior. The truth was evident in her eyes, she wanted to be saved.

His eyes finally tore from the window, the unoccupied seat of the girl, Johanna, and his thoughts scrambled into proper place. The answers to his haunting, pestering question remained: Where had he seen her face before? What eyes had he stared into and seen the same immeasurable torture as Johanna?

Before he had even reached the end of the street, the street he had been threatened with his life should he return, he decided that within a few days time, when the Judge's suspicions had mellowed with his anger, Anthony would risk a second venture to the girl's window.

He could only pray that Johanna rested beside her window and that her blue eyes, filled to the brim with innocence tainted by her agony, would rest their sights upon him and savor his face as much as he did hers.

The boy thrust himself into yet another passing crowd, his footsteps melding with their own, but his young heart fluttered and soared above all others to the clouded skies above.

**Fleet Street, London**

Mrs. Lovett had done as she had promised and assisted Mr. Todd in moving his previous items back into the forsaken room that was to be his barber shop. All had been deported from his sights that held even the slightest resemblance to his beloved family, including the baby's decaying cradle, or the various knickknacks, such as a rotting hairbrush, that turned his chest to fire upon seeing the golden locks tangled in its bristles. All items were discarded to an unused guestroom below, near Mrs. Lovett's rarely used bedroom and would remain there until time's hands had molded them into dust, just as it had his heart.

The only things that remained were necessities: a vanity for his brushes and beloved razors, a large chair for his customers, and the shattered mirror in the corner of his room. He felt it to be a reminder, of sorts, an object that would never let him forget who he was, and of course, who he had become. Every time he saw his reflection, he would turn, shudder, and remember it all, to hell with the pain that it cost him.

And of course, Mrs. Lovett insisted on adding her perspective in both word and action. The woman had demanded he place a cot against the wall, a blanket at its foot, candles on the windowsills, and after she had waylaid him on more than one occasion, he had agreed to her conditions on the room, however menial they were.

The one thing that remained true to his particular liking was the aging photograph of his wife clutching at their baby, a delicate smile painted on her lips, a soundless giggle erupting from his daughter's stomach. He could remember the day they had taken the picture, and after the photograph had been taken, Lucy offered her husband the baby and sat beside him, saying that Benjamin should have been included. He had replied that he would have altered the beauty of his girls, paling in comparison to their golden glory. His memories were cracked and dry after that, like his skin upon the floating driftwood, but he could recall Lucy's large smile at his remark and her lips against his cheek. She had not kissed him, yet she let her lips linger as she whispered to him, her sweet breath prickling his neck. "Never," she had said, and then the memory was blank, a slate in his open mind wiped clean.

After the basic necessities of the room had been attended to, including Mrs. Lovett's delicate touches and empty suggestions, the baker declared that it was time he enter the world of London after fifteen years and make his presence known to her citizens.

As Sweeney's mind screamed and recoiled from even the slightest idea of feigning pleasantness with the filth that was the human race, common sense told him that if he had any hopes of luring the Judge into his home and rescuing his child, than his minor discomforts would have to be crushed.

He had dominated his emotions for more than a decade. Why should the present be any more difficult than the past?

Once Mrs. Lovett had donned her hat and shawl, the mysterious pair left the house on Fleet Street and began their decent down the streets to St. Dunstan's Market. Both the man and woman kept their eyes bent, their faces obscured with a mask of indifference as they pushed past the oblivious strollers, speaking in low tones of which only the other could hear.

No one stopped to spare them a gaze, no one cared to offer a kind smile or a nod of recognition, save the times a desperate salesman would approach with an offer of a purchasable good, silently praying that neither the man or the woman were cursed with the parsimony that seemed to claim all but the prosperous. Todd's and Lovett's answers, one in the same, were cold and uncaring. Without speaking, they would continue their determined stride to the crowded center of the bustling shoppers.

And when they had reached the area, the two waited for the flamboyant, Italian barber, infamous for his impeccable skill with a straight-edge and weekly visits to the marketplace.

They did what Sweeney Todd had done for, what seemed to be, his entire existence: They waited. What he would do when the Italian did take his place upon his windswept stage, Sweeney did not know. It was best to let the events unfold as they did and take action as he saw fit, however foolhardy or nonsensical his actions may be. If one thing could be said for him, it was that he, Sweeney Todd, was a daring man.

Todd allowed his eyes to skim the crowd, Mrs. Lovett keeping a respectful air of silence, much to his shock. So many faces, none he could remember. Hundreds of people and not one acquaintance, previous customer, past friend, beaming wife, giggling daughter…

His eyes clicked into place on a man. This man was not a friend nor customer, but a loathed and hunted foe; a man whose blood Todd wished to see sliding between the crevices of London's stoned streets at that exact moment. Every inch of Sweeney's body, every nerve, was like a spark of energy beckoning him to do as he so desired. His impulse to kill the man was so great, so raw, his entire body had lurched forward and his eyes, aflame with loathing and dancing with thoughts of the man's death, saw only one face and one alone: Beadle Bamford.

Mrs. Lovett, now clinging at his arm, began to whisper her pleas, begging for his patience, his judgment against the forbidden.

Yet the Beadle still dawdled about, inquiring about goods of interest, pursing his lips in a way that only he could find appealing, and making idle conversation with a woman and her younger child. Bamford's eyes narrowed and skimmed over the females' faces and then paused momentarily upon their breasts. His gaze then snapped upward to meet the woman's face, a repulsive smile the only attempt he made at banning the scruples she may have held in concern towards his gawking.

The impulse, at its highest peak of intensity, was too much to battle. Sweeney took another rapid step towards his enemy and then another, his steps then a determined stride, nearing the point of a mad sprint. His breaths were labored, not from the effort, but the sheer adrenaline as he, approaching the man who had assisted in his false arrest, his wife's agonizing death, his daughter's captivity, drew closer and closer to the Beadle's lone, portly body. The world that had once been surrounding him had vanished long ago; only the Beadle's insolence remained, displayed with every leer he bestowed upon vulnerable females, every disarming word he slurred.

Sweeney grasped his razor after tearing at his coat in search of it. The metal was cool against his burning flesh, soon warmed against his body heat, the fire that burned inside of his skin.

His quarry, a mere foot away, turned to stare him in the eye out of curiosity towards his odd approach. Bamford arched a brow, parted his lips as if to speak, while Todd's head shrieked and his hand, clutching at the razor, began to tremble in violent anticipation.

Todd's heart punched suffocating blows to his chest, liquid energy comingling in his simmering blood. Already, Sweeney's hand was rising into the suffocating air and a glint of silver sparkled at the bottom of his vision beneath the dark leather coat.

"Ladies and Gentleman, your attention, please!" a boy's shrill voice cried out.

Turning away from Mr. Todd, Beadle Bamford assessed the young child upon Pirelli's stage with a newfound interest. Todd cursed the diversion beneath his breath.

A hand tugged at his arm and pivoted his upper body with unexpected strength. The ex-con raised his arms in both a defensive position and stance of attack. Mrs. Lovett met his gaze, deep eyes bulging in immeasurable fury and never releasing an ounce of their tension, though he had pinned his arms to his sides and clenched his fists. Darkness edged the frame of her face; an incensed flush crept into her cheeks. "Have yeh gone bloody insane?" she demanded, the quiet snap of her voice like the sting of frostbite. "Yeh want to kill 'im in front of all these people?!" The baker turned to assess the shoppers, as if assuring herself that no one had taken notice of her companion's resolute accost of the Beadle. Then, demanding that he stand still and wait for the Italian, she turned, observed the humorous boy, and clung to the little poise she had managed to conserve. _The bloody man was an expert at digging up her most illicit emotions_, she thought, tearing at her lips with her teeth.

Clothed in rags and a blonde wig, the child ran about the stage and threw bottles of a thick, yellow substance into the crowd. A jovial tune was heard from the boy, a song that held little truth in comparison the substance advertised. "Pirelli's Miracle Elixir," he had called it. "The revolution in barbering that will change the lives of men forever, it will! Grow 'air in less than a week! Curls will sprout, you'll 'ave to thin it a good four times each month!" He offered a coy grin towards a nearby woman, screeching in delight at his flirtatiousness. "The lady's do love a gent with a 'ead of 'air, they do!"

A man reached out to catch a thrown bottle, missed his target, and jolted backwards as the glass shattered. The liquid streaked the ground, emitting a fowl smelling scent into the air that most recoiled from in repulsion.

Fear shadowed the boy's eyes and went pitifully masked as the child snatched another bottle. His fingers shook while he dabbed the "Elixir" onto a near man's bald head and spread the liquid atop his smooth skull. The odor spread to the client's nostrils and his disgust was notable due to the crease of upset upon his brow.

"Quite the show," Bamford noted, leaning in towards Sweeney.

The silent man turned in response to the Beadle's words. He observed Bamford through his slits for eyes, their trail running down to the man's shoes up to the top of his thinning hair.

Mrs. Lovett took notice of the exchange and snatched Sweeney's arm, feigning austerity when, in actuality, it was terror.

Something caught Sweeney's keen gaze during the brief study: Red marks etched upon the Beadle's skin between his glove and the edge of his jacket. There, pressed upon his wrist, were imprints created by, from the looks of it, a person's fingers. Someone had been clutching onto the Beadle's wrist and the bruising surface of his flesh signified that the person's grip had to have been strong. Realization dawned on the barber within the moment; possibilities took their hasty, disconcerting flight. The markings were thin, as if the finger's that had once grasped the man's wrist were both slender and petite.

The fingers of a child…

Sweeney snapped his head to the side; his heart shuddered and skipped a few beats. Months had passed and he had insisted on pushing away all memories of his daughter, never to summon her face into his mind until she was back in his home, and if that was not to be, then never. But it could not be helped now. His daughter's face penetrated each and every thought inside of his pounding head, painful, clear visions of her clutching at the Beadle's wrist, willingly or out of possible desperation, he could not even begin to guess. True, the notion was nearing the point of absurdity, but his past experiences left no room for blissful ignorance against the thought of Johanna in peril. Could he even fathom the idea that she was in the same _town_ as he?

Emotions bubbled inside of his chest.

Mrs. Lovett's words of complete reason echoed in his ears.

He could not make a scene here, at least, not against the Beadle. The boy and his Elixir, however, was a bit of a different matter.

"This is piss!" he shouted, releasing some of his bottled tensions with the deliverance of his allegation. He pointed a finger at a bottle being handed around the crowd, passed on as if it was Death in substantial form. "Piss and ink!"

Mrs. Lovett stifled a snort and added her own set of accusations. "It smells like Death, it does!" She grasped a bottle, of which a man was inhaling, and directed it away from his nostrils. "I wouldn't smell it if I was you, me love!" He grinned and nodded in agreement.

A sudden voice bellowed over the crowds of sniggering citizens. "I am Adolfo Pirelli, The King of the Barbers, _Buongiorno_, and good day!" With a flourish, he removed his cape and continued the lengthy introduction in a deep, Italian accent. "Now who says my Elixir is piss?"

A lengthy pause and then a voice amongst the silence: "I do, Signor," Sweeney declared as he strode to the foot of the stage. "I am Sweeney Todd of Fleet Street. Being a barber myself, I hold certainty that this elixir is nothing more than a sham, concocted from piss and ink, and sold to an unsuspecting public for the sole purpose of robbing good people of their money." Sweeney could only gnaw at his lips to keep from grimacing at the words, false concern dripping from every syllable. The faces within the crowd gawked at him, either wide-eyed in curiosity or grinning for sheer enjoyment of a good challenge. Todd bit at the inside of his cheek.

He then proceeded to display his glorious razors to the audience, receiving gasps from the mouths of the faint, and finally concluded his announcement with a swift, spontaneous idea: A contest against the Italian for all to observe; five pounds as reward for the winner. Even Sweeney could feel a smirk creeping to his lips as Pirelli leaned forward and bared a toothy grin, which had, in the next second, fallen to a grimace after another glance at Todd's razor.

Pride was Signor Pirelli's downfall. He accepted the challenge without a moment's hesitation.

They proceeded to reveal the barber with most skill by shaving two men chosen at random from the crowd. After Todd's suggestion, a smiling Beadle had been appointed as judge of the "fastest, smoothest shave". _Yet another spontaneous suggestion on his part…_

Even though Sweeney, previously Benjamin, had been given a razor and cream every Sunday while imprisoned, and his skills with the straight-edge were put to use for both him and his inmates, the feel of shaving another man was a strange, distant sensation to him. Baffled, he thought back on the many times he had shaved another man after being taken from the Rocks, and still, applying the lather to his customer's face and flexing his wrist seemed to be a task laden with inexperience.

The Italian had resumed his increasingly aggravating song while shaving his own man. Todd swallowed and spared the crowd a glance. Not one person was looking at him in interest, not one face offered a hint of assurance.

He was going to fail.

Mrs. Lovett's face caught his eye, yet, when the corner of her mouth raised in encouragement, his nerves still burned like hot embers. The woman did nothing for him.

His eyes swept across the sea of faces and paused on the Beadle who took no notice of the frozen barber. Bamford, for appearance's sake, kept his yellowing teeth displayed in a disarming smile towards the citizens. As Sweeney furrowed his brow, he took notice of the red markings of a child's fingers around the Beadle's wrist once more. One glance, that was all it took, and determination came crashing into his body. The dead arms at his sides now sprung to life, his limp hands held the razor in a firm grip.

Pirelli, confident of his inevitable success, averted from the task at hand by continuing his irking song. He paused, passed forth a tune, brought his razor to the customer's cheek, and repeated the cycle until the customer had been long forgotten and the song of barbering precision had assumed its prominence.

The distraction from the Italian's work was the only aid Sweeney Todd needed in claiming his victory. With precision he thought had long forsaken him, the barber ran his metallic edge against the male's cheek, squinting in concentration, ears picking up the slight rustle of stubble upon blade. His razor, the extension of his arm, seemed to take life of its own and conducted his hand to swivel around the man's cheek in lavish accuracy. When Sweeney's hand had flown through the air and plopped to his side, through with the task, only a light coating of lather remained on the man's face. There was no remnant of his previous stubble, no nicks in his skin, and no droplets of blood that trickled from his flesh. The male licked his lips in satisfaction, bringing a towel to his chin and wiping away the remaining cream.

"The winner is Todd!" Beadle Bamford announced with a wide sweep of his hand.

Applause erupted as Todd, the courageous underdog in their eyes, claimed the title of excellence that was rightfully his.

Forced to humiliation, Pirelli presented Todd with compliments, a low bow, and a reluctant sum of five pounds. The money was deposited into Todd's outstretched hand and, after a parting word had been uttered and a frown of defeat, the Italian turned, slapped his child assistant square across the face, and set a rampage of kicks into his side until the child coughed droplets of blood. The two disappeared behind the curtained backstage, but the child's moans of pain could be heard by even the far-off spectators.

Mrs. Lovett greeted her companion with his outstretched coat and a word of sympathy towards the poor boy's mistreatment. Todd met her brief gaze and pushed her words away. When in Botany Bay, he had stood back as boys, young as seven years old, were crushed to death beneath the boots of their inmates or pummeled under the hands of their superiors. A beating of one boy made no difference to him then, and so, disgruntled, Todd slipped his jacket on and handed the woman various shaving tools. But he made sure to pocket the razor in its holster beneath his coat.

"Ah, Mr.…_Todd…_of Fleet Street," a man said in the precise accent of common nobility, tapping the barber's chest with the tip of his cane, "Excellent performance, I must say." He ceased his praise and stared hard at the barber, eyes demanding and clouded. The man wore trousers, a golden chain of a watch dangling from beneath the flap of his coat, a spotless, white undershirt, his jacket adorned with brass buttons, and the ghost of the smile he must have once held. There was a spark of warmth in his eyes, scarce, but in existence nonetheless. Several small cuts ran across the man's cheeks, his chin, and upper lip. Todd noted the man must have once had a thick beard and had nicked himself, on more than one occasion, in the process of shaving it off.

Strange, Sweeney thought, for a man of his social standing to have once worn a shabby beard. In any normal situation, Todd would not have given it a second thought. But at that very moment, the odd aura that surrounded the strange man seemed to summon many disturbing, undesirable questions.

"Do you, sir, have your own establishment?" He raised a brow, scanned Sweeney's face, and looked about the barber as if searching for someone else to be standing by his side. His eyes fell in sorrowful discontent then returned to gaze at Todd.

"He certainly does," Mrs. Lovett interjected, "Sweeney Todd's Tonsorial Parlor, right above my meat pie emporium on Fleet Street."

Thankful for Mrs. Lovett's intervention, Sweeney tore his eyes away from the mysterious gentleman and scanned the area for anything that would claim his interest.

Within one second, he had found it.

The Beadle, now departing from the area, took sight of the approaching barber and stopped short. His usual grin still tugged at Sweeney's resistance, even more so as he began to speak the same false words of kindness as he had to the crowd of spectators. "I thank you sir, for your good discretion today. You are, undoubtedly, a paragon of true integrity, and for that, I give you my earnest of thanks." The praises seemed to have flown from Sweeney's mouth the moment they passed through his tight throat.

His charming words disarmed the Beadle, and he spoke in tones that paled in comparison to the barber's elegant speech. "I do my very best, sir. Your shop is on Fleet Street, you said?"

An edge crept into Mr. Todd's voice. "Yes, sir," he said.

"Well, then, keep a sharp eye out, Mr. Todd, for I shall be there before the week is out."

"You, sir, will be graciously welcomed, Beadle Bamford. And I promise, upon your arrival, I will give you the closest shave known to man." Todd fought the sinister grin that tugged at his lips. "On the house," the barber added.

The Beadle seemed satisfied with this. He smiled and gave a wave of his hand, turning away from the man, wiping his fingers upon the lapels of his jacket as if to wipe away a disease.

"Ask to accompany him to the Judge's house."

Mr. Todd whirled his head to the side, startled by Mrs. Lovett's sudden appearance.

"What the bloody 'ell are you talking about?" he snapped.

Her rare, almost attractive, smile caused her eyes to lighten, her cheeks to lift in perkiness. "Ask to accompany the Beadle home, and when you arrive at the house, you just may see your daughter." Persuasion swam in the depths of her brown irises.

The blatant truth to Mrs. Lovett words was crushing. "I will?" he rasped.

A hand rubbed his shoulder. "Yeh _might_, love, but I think it's better to risk a visit and possibly see her than do nothing at all."

Throughout the days, Todd had refused most of Mrs. Lovett's suggestions regarding petty things until her will to continue her pestering had abated or he had succumbed to her demands. Now, he was more inclined to agree with the woman than ever.

After a fleeting look into the woman's face, much like a frightened, uncertain child, Sweeney strode to the departing figure of the Beadle and tapped him on the shoulder.

The man, with notable difficulty, turned his head towards the man. It was obvious, from the scowl upon the Beadle's face to the way he winced at the man's touch, that Bamford held reluctance when it came to conversing with the barber.

Sweeney ignored the Beadle's discomfort and spoke. "I assume you are headed to Judge Turpin's home, sir?" he asked in that same, ingratiating, forced tone.

"You'd be correct, Mr. Todd," Bamford said, swallowing his frown.

Amusement tingled in Todd's chest. The other man's discomfort was a bit entertaining. "Allow me to accompany you there, sir." There was a pause from the Beadle, who seemed quite unsettled about the fact. "Lord only knows how many criminals are lurking about the streets, sir." Leaning towards the Beadle, Todd whispered, "Wouldn't want any convicts approaching you, now would we?"

"Convicts?" the Beadle croaked.

Fingers wound around the barber's arm. Mrs. Lovett's presence made itself known without even a single word spoken between the two.

"Well, convicts, strangers... People of that kind," Grimacing at his loose speech and poorly chosen words, Sweeney Todd offered another disarming smile, though irritation made his mouth twitch.

"I suppose…" the Beadle agreed, eyeing the man before turning to continue on his way to the Turpin home.

Sweeney Todd, along with Mrs. Lovett, followed suite, neither one speaking with their voices, but holding full conversations with their eyes. Mrs. Lovett saw uncertainty in the barber's gaze, plain as day, and her attempts to soothe him with a squeeze of his hand were for naught. He would pull his fingers from hers, avert his eyes to the Beadle by his side, and mumble something of appraisal to the Beadle, who would snigger in return, agreeing to the barber's extolling in ravenous pleasure.

The time it took to reach the Turpin mansion was immeasurable; it seemed to have taken an hour at the very least.

Once they had approached the stone steps of the great house, Sweeney Todd sighed in dejection towards the absence of a golden haired angel in the building's windows. He could feel the bitter sting of tears burn his nose for a brief second and he greeted it with a sleeve to his eyes, rubbing his skin until it stung.

The Beadle produced a bronze key from his jacket's pocket, placed it in the keyhole of the large, oak doors, swung them open, and turned to utter a parting word to his companion, disregarding Mrs. Lovett altogether. "You have my thanks for your accompaniment, Mr. Todd."

"Of course, sir."

"I do hope to visit your shop as soon as my schedule permits."

Todd's voice rose over the outside commotion. He wanted the bastard to hear every word he was to say. "Do not rush, Beadle, sir, for a man in such a demanding position deserves nothing short of relaxation."

Just as he was about to shut the door, Sweeney's body jolted up the set of stairs, eyes bulging in anxiety as he strained to peer inside of the house.

What was he looking for? Was it a young girl to come bounding in his arms? Was it a judge that he could approach and slaughter with the vindictive force he had managed to subdue since entering this godforsaken town? Was it someone he had once known, only preserved in his sacred memories, tucked away and kept secure from the malicious forces of both the world around him and the hate locked inside of him?

Was it the source of the odd noise that he heard inside of the home?

Did he wish to know whose voice it was that he could now hear screaming "papa" from above a heavy staircase?

DID HE EVEN HAVE TO GUESS??!

Johanna.

"PAPA!" her muffled voice shrieked from the second floor.

_Johanna! Johanna! Johanna!_

His body screamed at him, tore at each aching muscle and every sore bone. His feet had already begun walking forward and his hands had clenched, pulsated, rattled in pain, so much pain! Invisible hands beat at his chest, knocking the air out of him with a huff, and then pushing him towards the open door, towards his daughter.

She, his daughter, his child, his Johanna, crying for him! Johanna had heard his voice!

The Beadle spun around and stared at the ceiling, hate overflowing from the rims of his eyes like fire. "I'm afraid I must depart," the man muttered. The door creaked to a close and slammed in the barber's face, though his eyes remained fixed upon the area that had once held a large stairway, the stairway that would have led to his child. _His_ child!

"No, no, no, no," Todd cursed as he prepared to beat his fists against the wood.

Mrs. Lovett rushed up the stone steps, the very steps she had stood on so long ago, waiting to beg for a woman's life, and tried to haul the barber away with all the strength she could conjure before resorting to pleas. "Mr. Todd, not now! You have to wait, Mr. Todd! Yeh bloody idiot, yeh 'ave to wait!!!"

The woman stumbled back as Todd threw her off of him, many people stopping to observe the events as they unraveled.

With a shaking finger and pure fury contorting his words, the barber pointed at the house. "They have her in there! She knew I was in there and you are telling me to wait! No, damn you! No!" he roared.

"Mr. Todd, now is not the time!"

His words cracked with unforeseen, suppressed cries. "She screamed for me and that bastard heard her. He's going to hurt her; he's going to hurt her, my _daughter_."

Helpless and with tears building up in the woman's eyes, much to her disdain, Mrs. Lovett placed an arm around her beloved barber's shoulder, guiding him away from the steps. "She's going to be fine, Mr. T. Now just ain't the time, too many people, my dear. Wait for the right moment, love."

His body shook beneath her hand and she questioned whether his trembling was due to uncontained anger or pure, resolute desolation. She could not hold in the sympathy she felt for the man; to stand outside the very house that imprisoned his little daughter, a child that he had somehow been in contact with, and to hear her crying, _shrieking_, for him.

As the couple walked down the street, the barber sent a series of desperate glances towards the windows of the mansion, waiting for a golden face to appear.

It did not come.

Hushing the man, Mrs. Lovett turned the corner and grasped his arm with a tighter exertion of energy in her hand.

"You'll get her back, Mr. Todd."

**Well, there you have it! Very important chapter, I have to hint that much**

**If you liked it, drop me a line!!!!!!!!! **

**Thank you all!**


	32. Chapter 32

**Chapter 32**

**The Turpin Mansion**

"Shut your mouth, God dammit!"

Johanna shook her head, much like a child who would not take a parent's word for an acceptable answer, and continued her relentless wailing. The Beadle's fist curled into her hair and hauled her to her feet; she gasped from the pain of it, naught to the anguish that rung her insides to dust.

She had heard _him_.

Bamford stared into her face, waiting for her to shrivel and burn from his eye's white-hot intensity. She did not brush his eyes with her own; fatigue made her head droop, her tears run free to the floor without the comforting feel of another man's fingers wiping them clean from her skin.

The sobs had reached the peak of their force, racking her body from stillness, her mind from rational thought. She moaned as if to bring back the voice she had heard, gruff and low, on the floor beneath her own. Right below her window where the silent vigils had endured for days on end, tiring and tormenting.

Crying, throughout her entire life, had done nothing for her. Perhaps it had gained her sympathy, yet nothing more, for the pain would ensue anyway, relentless, unpitying.

Now, she wept to hear her father's voice once more, as if to raise the dead from their eternal slumber and have them walk amongst the living. As if that, somehow, her tears would summon not only her father's voice, but his scent, his body, his touch. He would return, and once their tearful reunion had commenced, her papa would whisk her away from the house of ordeal and return her to the home that existed within the faint clarity of improbable dreams.

"Filthy bitch, silence yourself this instant!"

Her tears tangled inside of her throat, its watery substance choking the breath from her. Coughs vibrated throughout her chest, her body jolted with force powerful enough to strangle her. She gagged up nothing, her sniveling burned her nose and eyes until the pain beckoned tears of its own.

"My father, my _papa_, I-I-I need him. Please, let me go. Let me go to him!"

There was a sharp force against her jaw, the source eluded her vision. She squirmed a hand to her face and felt at the skin around her mouth, unsure of what damage the strange sensation had caused.

There was an odd taste in her mouth, much like copper or rust, a dripping substance of melted, salty metal...Warmth trickled down her chin, dribbled down to her chest, her stomach, the area in which her tears had fallen. When her fingers jerked away from her chapped lips, a thin layer of blood spread over her finger like a lush, satin sheet. It dribbled away from her vision, descending into the palm of her hand, much like a crimson teardrop, and spread through the cracks of her skin.

The Beadle had clouted her, and she was not surprised in the least. His consistent violence was natural to her, as ordinary as the presence of the nighttime sky or recurring breath: she would only be conscience of their absences.

The blood's warmth seeped through her sleeve, its color flourishing like the spreading of a flower's petals in the early morn. Johanna remained fixated on the spot, either terror or awe compelling her to study the liquid with developing interest, its trail like fingers encircling her wrist and dripping to the wooden floor with a soft _tap_.

Fingers took hold of her cheeks and forced her face upward, right into the unfeeling blackness of the Beadle's eyes. The crying had yet to cease, much to Bamford's growing displeasure. His arms began to tingle in suppressed rage. "Stay silent or your pretty face will be nothing more than a bloody pulp in my hand!"

The girl's tears slipped through the Beadle's fingers. He curled his lip in disgust.

Over her choked sobs, a set of approaching footsteps began their ascent up the near staircase, muffled, and then louder as the distance between the owner and the girl's room reduced. Johanna's cries fell silent, cut short as if the footsteps had robbed her of her own strained voice. Tortured, red-rimmed eyes rested upon the door to the bedroom, awaiting the footsteps to pause at the peak of the steps.

No, they still continued, labored and heavy.

The fragile heart within Johanna's chest thrashed until she was certain it would rupture. Who was it, clambering up the stairs to her very room. The judge--but he was at court! It was not a maid, the approaching set of feet held to much weight. Was it an intruder approaching, intent on robbing the household of its sumptuous trinkets and luxurious ornaments?

Or was it Him-the possibility that she was capable of bearing mere consideration but never dared believe? Was it He approaching her room to hold her, to carry her away, to save her? She had heard her father's voice, but had he heard hers?

The tap of boots swirled in her head, vibrated in her ears. The sound threw itself against her skull, again and again, smashing, pounding, battering until she screamed in pure anguish.

_He_ heard her. _He_ was there. Father.

An instinct, with the strength of a wild beast, thrust herself away from the beadle's grasp to the door, distressed, yet resolute energy pumping through her body in trembling currents. Her hand groped for the door's handle and then for the wall along the side of the hall, tears blotting out the lucidity of her vision. Only shadows remained and the shadow at the end of the hall called out to her without moving an inch, articulating a single word.

It was _Him_.

Johanna croaked out another cry and stumbled forward. Depleted of her vigor, she held her hands outward and collapsed into the chest of the distorted figure. His arms coiled around her waist, face rested on the crown of her head.

The girl whimpered into the fabric of his chest, "You're home...Oh, papa, papa, your home."

"I did not think I'd be missed so dearly," the deep voice remarked, a hint of amusement bringing an inflection to his otherwise dead tone.

"My Lord!" the Beadle called from the doorway of her room. "I did not expect you to return!"

"The court is in recess," the deep voice replied.

Ice crept into Johanna's body. It chilled her, froze her blood and ceased its constant flow.

That was not the voice of her father.

Disbelief, shock, horror, grief punctured Johanna's chest like an edge of a dagger's tip, piercing her heart at its very core until it bled crimson despair--until it wept for her, for her father.

Small observations that had gone overlooked now took on a size of insolent significance. This man's scent was of fabric starch and pen ink, not of earth and smoke from another man's pipe. His voice was a dead monotone that clicked her terrifying memories into place, the memories that kept her lying awake at night with recurrent screams that she did not realize were her own until her fingers clawed at her vibrating throat. The man's words were not a sweet and calming sound as her mind had recalled. His arms had wrapped around her frame, squeezing her hips, rather than holding her with the passion of a dying man to his lifeline. The mere touch of this man felt wrong. His skin upon her own had somehow corrupted whatever innocence she had kept tucked away in her breaking spirit.

Reluctant, Johanna pulled away from his chest and skimmed the Judge's face with her eyes, brief for the sole purpose of avoiding the strained thirst that was ever-present in his gaze, mocking her each moment it sought the pleasure of watching her squirm.

The judge noted her immediate discomfort, the drying blood caked around her lips, and squinted in skepticism. "Were you expecting someone else, Johanna?"

Johanna side-stepped the judge. Her eyes locked on the hall's closed doors, the forsaken wood floors.

Frustration melted the ice in her blood. There she stood, awaiting the one man her heart knew would never come, devoting her entire being to what most would think impossible.

Those hallways were as deserted as the pulse of emotion in her mind, as numb as the night she was read aloud a letter declaring she be robbed of all her joys, of the one man who had been her family. And like that night, there was a numbing nothingness followed by a powerful surge of violent emotion.

It was humorous, even to her, how history could replay itself, like sun pursuing moon in a continuous trail.

"Where is he?" Johanna whispered once, enough malice in her voice to provoke an ounce of unease in Turpin.

"Who are you speaking of?"

"My father." The hatred, now gone, for she could not bear utter the word with the smallest amount of spite in her soul.

At first, the Judge's eyes narrowed and suspicion shredded his conscience. But the way she said the simple word, like a pious worshiper to his God, a deaf man hearing the distant, winding chords of a luxuriant melody for the first time in his life, was beyond anything the Judge had ever heard before. The passion, the heartbreak, the way her eyes glistened with building tears as her lips formed the one word the judge had only heard _her_ say to _him_.

His hands clenched into fists, his eyes flew to the Beadle who was leaning in the doorway of the girl's bedroom, regarding the scene in buried hilarity, but obvious disdain.

"Your father?" Turpin repeated, wavering between dumbness and thunderous shouts.

"Yes!" she cried out. Johanna's body went rigid, though winded from intensifying emotion. "My father! Where is he?"

The judge's hand snapped out to grasp his ward's jaw, bringing his face down to her height. "Dead," he hissed into the girl's face. Only then did he observe the almost undetectable twinge of fear.

"No, he isn't, you took me from him! You--you and him!" she jerked her head from his grasp and glared at the Beadle, but bit back a yelp of pain as Turpin snatched her forearm and swiveled her around.

"Get back in your room. Now."

The Beadle, grinning, stepped from the doorway with a flourish, a steep, mock bow.

In sudden defeat, Johanna walked alongside the man, pausing before the open doorway. She reflected for a split second before the judge could push her into the cramped confinements, her mind echoing with the blur of sound that was once her father's voice.

When Johanna's thoughts clicked into place and she realized that she was being dragged from her father, she struggled against the Judge's grasp and the Beadle's swift assistance.

"No, no! Bring him back to me! Father, I'm up here!" Her cries coincided with their huffs of stress. Both men managed to cart her into her room, thrust her on the bed, and pin her arms to her sides. The teen had succeeded in draining two grown men a segment of their energy. "Come back, papa!"

"This is demonic possession," the Beadle huffed below his breath.

Turpin gazed at the struggling body beneath his arms, nearly ashamed of his arousal at such a moment. Her could feel the fear ripping through her beneath his hands, how it caused her body to convulse with uncontrollable anxiety, her spine to arch once the climax of her tantrum had been reached. Part of him wanted to kiss the tears from her face if only to savor the salt on his tongue, to hear her shudder as he nipped the skin of her neck with his teeth. The other, more rational, half of him wanted to flee from the room and be rid of the child--the entrapped animal, wild with despair--that howled for a man he had not seen for the duration of fifteen years.

"Oh, God, papa, _please_!"

_Benjamin Barker. The swine that had married his intended, produced a child with her, and then displayed his family around the town, brandishing them like the fool that he was. _

"Come back!" she stretched her arm towards the room's single window, tears pooling into the blonde locks spread beneath her head.

_After all those years, he could still picture the depth of Lucy's love for the insufferable barber, bursting from her eyes like the tears that cascaded from the eyes of her daughter._

"Please, stop!" The beadle was wheezing a chuckle as he tugged at Johanna's bodice, keeping the Judge's distraction well noted.

_Their daughter, tangible evidence of Lucy and Benjamin's bonding of their minds, bodies, and souls. He had been foolish enough to love that?_

"God, please!"

_Daughter of a convict and a suicidal beggar. Daughter of filth. Daughter that had the shape of Benjamin's eyes, the curve of Benjamin's hands, the rounded face of Benjamin . Daughter that wept for her true father's return, not for her false guardian's touch._

_Not even the sting of his whip against his skin could purge his desires nor would it gain the love of the creature beneath his hold. She would forever hate him. _

_She needed to learn pain, to witness horror and seek comfort from his arms. She needed to learn the ways of the world and shelter herself within her prison, where the true significance of terror rested within. _

"Help me, father...please, help me...!" The Beadle chortled, pressed his face against the side of her cheek, and inhaled her fluorescent smell as the stone statue of a judge stood, oblivious to the scene before him, thoughts raging a war of dominance in his throbbing skull.

_She needed to broken, to be shattered like her parents and left for his taking._

His ward's voice rang in his ears with the shrill, sharp intensity of her screams. Her pleas, echoing in his mind, mocking him, _condemning_ him.

_But above all things, she needed to be silenced._

"Plea-!"

The judge lunged forward, instinctive to his hungry nerves, and wrapped his hands around the girl's skinny throat. Her shrieks, her cries, her senseless begging fell short and the room plunged into silence. The Judge increased the pressure in the fingers coiled around her throat, gawking at his ward's paling skin. His thumbs dug into her windpipe, the absence of breath through her throat was exhilarating, for he had been the cause of it. Her nails dug into his flesh and a strangled whimper emitted through her soundless, parted lips. Sweat dripped down his brow and tangled in the stubble of his chin. It seeped into his mouth through the corners of his lips, it stung his eyes and made them tear in irritation.

The Beadle had since retreated from the pair, eyes nearly as widened as Johanna's. He held his hands up in defense, but watched the scene, fixated on the girl who barely clung to the brink of consciousness. For once, pity could be discerned from even the coldest pits of his otherwise uncaring gaze.

The girl's arms fell slack beneath the judge's hold. She leaned back, wilted, broken, eyes brought to a lazy close.

"My lord!" The Beadle intervened. The girl's displeasure may have been a form of leisure before, but now...now, this was palpable, cold-blooded murder. "She's grown limp."

The judge straightened his spine and released the breath he had not realized he had been holding.

_Christ, he had killed her._

The hands unwound from her throat, outstretched in horror towards what he had just done. He could hear her, pushing air through her constricted throat to sustain the little life she had. The girl's chest rose, coughs ripping her insides to shreds like savage hands to paper. Air was fire inside her throat, the smoke filling her chest until she heaved and gagged without human control over her own body. After minutes of expelling the air from her lungs, waiting for gentle, revitalizing breath in return, and rubbing the moisture from her drooping eyes, she grasped a fistful of fabric and hoisted herself away from the men. The excretion of energy became too much of a burden, and she slumped against the mattress, wincing as air filled her aching throat.

The Judge stared at the child, observing his ward in all of her agony. A guilt began to develop, immeasurable to the vindictive pleasure he had received from strangling her, from the way her eyes had closed because of him. He had power, he had silenced her.

Days ago, perhaps months ago, he would have cradled the limp body in his arms and held her out of sheer guilt for the act, then he would recede to his Bible and mutilate his flesh in an act of contrition. He would bleed his regret until as weary as the child, or as dead as the numerous girls he had sentenced to die for crimes common sense has proved they had not committed.

_Hell, days ago, he would not have strangled her to begin with!_

But that was in the past, the present was now at hand. All guilt in his chest was crushed, pounded into dust by hands of apathy, or hidden so that not even he was aware of its presence. If he had to lie to himself, then so be it. A man of his stature felt nothing, he scolded himself; nothing, save dominance.

Like so many days in his court room or the nights he had spend tormenting the girl sprawled upon her bed, the Honorable Judge Turpin stood, gawked at the child, raised his lip in a superior, degrading sneer, and glided from the room.

The Beadle inched forward to pursuit the judge. He stopped short, frowning at the gasping Johanna. His brow furrowed. The girl struggled to face him, fresh tears embarking on a silent trail down her flushed cheeks, glistening with perspiration. There was a look of pure misery in her dimming eyes, like, what the Beadle had imagined to be, the very eradication of innocence from a child, slipping from her with simplicity. He stared, dumbfounded, helpless even, his eyes falling to the floor. He could not look at her. Muttering, "Sorry," the Beadle broke their gaze and fled the room. For the remainder of the day, the Beadle avoided Turpin at all costs.

_A day or two would pass. The girl's strength would return in diminutive quantities with the mere intake of food, an hour at most of brief sleep. It would not be until yet another dull, gloomy afternoon that a sailor would peer into the room of his infatuation with the risk of a beating, of death, heavy on his shoulders. But, comfort would envelop when he thought of the Judge and Beadle seated at the Old Bailey, away from the house, away from Johanna._

_The girl would spot him easily, offering that same melancholy smile she had bestowed in his favor the day of their silent meeting. She then would open the window, ignoring the breeze in derision, and throw him the house's key, the very key the judge had given her months ago in hopes that such an act would be a healthy attempt at a truce between him and her. Johanna, he had thought, would not be able to evade his home anyway. Certainly not with the Beadle's eyes on constant watch, or his staff wary of the girl's presence. Surely she was stupid enough to believe the key a symbol of trust._

_Trust had thus been thrown from the window to the open arms of a stranger._

_Grinning, the sailor would cup the fallen key in his hands and thank her, silent in words, delight abounding from his youthful blue eyes, thoughts of hasty return fresh in his mind._

_He would then disappear into he crowd of strollers, leaving his lingering comfort as the girl's only company. _

_With the lone purpose of desperate escape weighing heavy in her heart, Johanna would perch herself beside the window and wait for the boy to return, to whisk her away, to grant her the single second of freedom she would need to slip away and seek out 186 Fleet Street. _

To Hell with the cost.

To Hell with the Judge.

**Fleet Street, London**

"She's so sad, Mr. Todd! So immensely miserable, but so beautiful! Mr. Todd, she needs my help." Anthony Hope cried after barging into Mr. Todd's shop, making hasty introduction with the women present, and resting his gaze upon Todd, who had previously pinned himself to the wall with a razor in his grip.

And of course, Anthony Hope remained blissfully unaware that his old companion was holding a sharp tool in his hands as if in silent preparation for stealthy attack. He continued his clutter of unclear rants, interrupted by the scarce moments in which he took a breath.

Rolling his eyes, the barber directed Anthony to his barbering chair and set him down, muttering, "Take a breath, son." Mr. Todd readied himself for whatever nonsense he was about to hear from the frantic teenager. Though he had to admit, never before had he seen Anthony in such a state.

"Lord, I never thought I'd lose my mind after a mere day on London soil," the boy murmured into his hands. He snapped his head up. "But I have, Mr. Todd. I've lost my mind, my sanity, because of her. I see her face at night, in my dreams. I see her eyes filled with tears and that pleading look she gave me the last I saw of her. It's driving me mad!"

Todd eyed the sailor, uncomfortable with the fact that a young boy, sick with verbosity, came running to him for advice on the delicate matter of adolescent females. Fifteen years in a bloody colony, and the one challenge he had never been met with in all of his life now slapped him in the face.

In the corner of the room, Mrs. Lovett was in a fit of suppressed laughter, the grin on her face coy enough to snap Todd's last taut string of restraint. Her face reddened from the effort of keeping the silence, the overwhelming humor that plagued her at the barber's expense.

Fuming, Sweeney sent an unpleasant scowl in her direction. The baker flicked her hand, as if to swat at a fly in midflight, and turned to face the wall whose pale surface held more friendliness in comparison to the barber's glare.

"A girl?" Sweeney rasped after returning his attention to the sailor.

"Yes, Mr. Todd! A girl! Have you heard a word I've been saying?"

Tempted to mutter a curse, the barber shook his head and glued a less than pleasing smile on his face. "I must say, my mind's elsewhere, boy." He concluded the sentence through gnashed teeth. "Tell me about...the girl."

"Well, she's more formally known as Johanna, sir. Judge Turpin's ward." The last bit of Anthony's sentence was said in a lower, more reluctant whisper, as if a horrid memory had bloomed in his mind.

Sweeney Todd froze. The razor in his hand rattled as his arm trembled, and he had to clench his fist to keep from losing complete control of himself. "Johanna..."

"Yes. Johanna."

Swallowing his anxiety, the barber jerked his head towards Mrs. Lovett, who had turned to meet him with an undecipherable expression. She lowered her head in a nod, so discrete the barber questioned if she had done it with encouraging intention.

"Tell me," he said, his voice a meager sigh.

"Well, there isn't much more to say, Mr. Todd." Anthony stared hard at his knees. Then, his head shot up and a new truth dazzled in his eyes. "I suppose I should tell you of my intentions, Mr. Todd."

"Please do," the barber said. HIs eye caught hold of the London sky for the first time since his arrival.

"The Judge is at court right as we speak, Mr. Todd. So I believe that now is the opportune moment to slip into his home and seek out Johanna. If I beseech her to come away with me tonight, surely she will accept my offer! I wish to see her happy, sir, that is all I want. It's quite plain that Judge does not give a damn about her." Anthony turned to Mrs. Lovett. "Pardon my language, ma'am."

"I've 'eard worse, son," she said, winking.

"A foul mouth is inexcusable. I've been told that it is improper to indulge in such habits in the presence of a lady."

Hands on her hips, the woman turned to face the sailor. "Your quite the romantic, aren't yeh?" she noted, amused.

"Yes, ma'am." Anthony's eyes fell, rose to Sweeney, and began to glisten with unspoken pleas. Todd felt himself shudder. "But before I can implore Johanna to elope with me...I must implore something of you Mr. Todd. I know no one else in London, sir. There is an inn along the Thames that I reside in, but I cannot bring Johanna there. I need to bring her somewhere safe, in the company of someone I trust." There was a pregnant silence and then words. "After months at sea, Mr. Todd, I have found you to be an honest man, and now I request this of you. Would you allow me to bring Johanna for an hour, two at most, while I seek a carriage to take us away? Please, sir, an hour or two, and I owe you my life."

Sweeney's eyes floated to the sky, the gray sheet that was penetrated by rays of golden light. Words formed in his mind, but ran dry in his throat. For a while, he continued to study the sky, unaware of its concealed splendor until now, then turning to observe Anthony's hopeful gaze.

Such innocence still made his stomach churn.

"Course, love. Bring the girl here," Mrs. Lovett said for the barber. She smiled in recognition towards the man's fleeting nod of thanks and strolled over to offer a comforting hand on his arm. The strain in his arm was notable and best left ignored.

A burst of excitement flew through the young boy. He stood, stammering his thanks, and shook Todd's hand, unable to subdue his edge. "Thank you, my friend! Thank you!" In a flash, the boy darted from the room, slamming the door behind him. There was a moment's silence before Anthony's head poked back in. "And thank you as well, ma'am!" The head disappeared, leaving the barber and baker in unsettling silence.

"Your goin' to get her back, Mr. T," Mrs. Lovett finally murmured, squeezing his skin in assurance. "Maybe then I can find out 'ow the hell you and Johanna each other so bloody well."

Todd sighed in spite of himself. Could he dare believe that he was to be reunited with his daughter after having his hopes crushed on more than one excruciating occasion?

A faint ray of sunshine warmed his skin through the window's thick glass.

"Soon she'll be here, standing by this ridiculously large window," she said in a whisper, gazing up at the sky. An edge crept into her voice, soft and soothing, for the barber's unease since he had heard his daughter's screams was profound. She attempted to relax him and thoughts of his child, she believed, would do just that. Something sparkled in the woman's eyes, a faint glint that had gone buried for years. The woman's lips leaned in towards his ear, her hushed words brushed his face. "Right by your side."

A shaky breath escaped the barber's lips, his eyes dared meet the baker's. As if he were intimidated by the intimacy of her body close to his own, Todd dodged her glance and began to pace the shop, ignoring the abrupt, rude manner in which he had dismissed the woman.

Mrs. Lovett seemed to take no offense, concealing her singed sentiment from plain sight as she had done for ages, a skill of precision that she even took pride in.

_Emotions were her own damn business anyway. _

Shrugging off the barber's increasingly menacing aura, Lovett approached the stove. She swayed the kettle on top, waiting for the familiar swoosh of water to reverberate inside. When it had been heard, she lit a flame and stared downward as the water inside began to simmer and bubble. "Poor Johanna," she said, "years gone by and not even a bit of parental affection."

Todd spun around, exasperated, and opened his mouth to object.

His better discretion told him to snap his mouth shut and continue sharpening his razor before any truths tumbled out and fell upon unwanted ears. No one was to be trusted, he had to remain vigilant. What other reason did he have for withholding the fact from Anthony that his recent obsession was his only daughter? Because of mistrust. And he knew, without a hint of uncertainty in his mind, that distrust had saved his neck from more than one predicament.

"Bugger," Mrs. Lovett cursed after placing her finger on the heated surface of the kettle. The heat singed her calloused skin.

Sweeney was beside her before she could say anything more. He snatched the woman's hand and inspected it, stone expression unfaltering.

"Mr. T, what the hell-?"

"Stop," he demanded, rotating her finger in his hand. His steady gaze met her own. "You've burned yourself."

The woman, though elated with the barber's shrouded concern, scoffed. "I'm a baker, love, in case you've forgotten. I've dealt with burns the size of a bruised fruit at St. Dunstan's market."

"Be more cautious," he cut her off, releasing his hold, slipping past her.

"Someone's a bit overprotective, hmm?" Mrs. Lovett said as she approached Sweeney's side.

"Learned habit," he growled under his breath, placing his arm on the windowsill and scanning the crowds for a certain judge or Beadle to douse the fiery hunger in his chest.

"Learned habit...Oh, that's rich, that is."

He turned to glare at her, as if in hopes that doing so would silence her. But of course, his trivial irritation only bemused her, and she grinned at him with a playful whisk of her head to the crowd. Her gaze suddenly clouded, she arched a brow in distaste.

Inquisitive, Todd turned to seek out what had caused such an upset in the baker. He immediately spotted the ostentatious Italian cut through the townspeople, staring upward towards the shop's window in seething fury. The gaunt boy by his side, like a frightened shadow to his owner, rubbed at the grime smeared over his eyes, fresh cuts oozing a bit of blood onto his chin. The pair made their way towards the building.

"Keep the boy in your shop," Sweeney commanded in a low voice, brushing the woman's face with his eyes.

Mrs. Lovett nodded, abandoned the spot, and approached the shop's door. "Have fun with this one, Mr. Todd."

**Beginning of this chapter was quite dark, I admit, so I had to add some Todd/Lovett buoyancy (if you can call it that) to ease the mood up a bit. The strangling bit with the judge was even difficult for me to put down, such crimes are pretty dismal, but strangulation does, at most times, show a need for dominance in the assailant. And, hell, the Judge is a damned dominant guy! **

**This has been my most hasty update in some time, so I hope my efforts do go noticed. If you have anything to say, then please do so. Plenty of people have favorite this story and I do wish I could receive a review from some of the mysterious readers. **

**But, as always, thanks go to those who have reviewed or **_**constantly**_** reviewed, critiquing my work. **


	33. Chapter 33

**Chapter 33**

**Turpin's Mansion, London**

Even with the absence of the Great Judge fresh in his mind, Anthony Hope could not ban the gripping anxiety that tightened his throat as he trudged to the mansion's fronts steps. The house key Johanna had flung from her window, now clutched in his hand, vibrated with the boy's rapid heartbeat. HIs blood raced in eagerness, his skin heated at the very image of Johanna in his company, of her sweet blonde locks brushing her brow, her earnest, azure eyes burying their salient purity into his own.

If Anthony had not held his hand within his fingers for the few moments of his profound apprehension, he probably would have never sunk the key into the door's lock and heard its satisfying click. His hands noted the chill that licked his skin at the swooshing of the large door, brought to a narrow open. A musky smell slipped from the inside of the house, a dusty, wooden aroma.

His footsteps creaked as they set upon the carpet floor, the door's closing tap echoed down the Judge's barren halls and rolled off of its walls, adorned with explicit pictures for some sort of attempt at appealing decor.

The boy slinked his way through the walkways for the second time that same week. His eyes, trained in the spotting of objects from a distance at sea, now scanned the home for a stairway that would lead to the second floor, to Johanna. Luck was on his side, for the stairway rested straight ahead.

Then again, luck worked in ludicrous ways, for to the side of the stairway, a set of feet could be detected approaching the area. The steps were light, much like the delicate tap of a woman's steps, to Anthony's relief, but they were steps nonetheless.

Panicked, the sailor ducked to the side and leaned against a protruding wood panel. His form, shielded from unwanted eyes, went rigid against the hard surface. Almost certain that the blood pounding in his ears would go heard by the Judge's maid Anthony tilted his head to the side and strained his ears for the sound of eventual fading footsteps.

The maid hummed a soft tune as she busied herself with whatever task seemed to be at hand. There was a brushing sound, much like fingers stroking cloth, and then the footsteps, the soft song, had succumbed to sudden silence.

Anthony's heard shuddered as the footsteps began once more, their volume increased with purpose.

For the second time, they came to an abrupt halt.

The silence was a knife to the young boy's ears.

A pair of shoes infiltrated his intent stares at the mansion's floors. Wide eyed, Anthony Hope lifted his head, slow and terrified, to entertain the gaze of the maid who now stood before him, arms crossed in challenge.

Strands of disarrayed, brunette hair fell into the older woman's eyes. Harsh wrinkles of pain became creased as her brow furrowed, a scowl drawing her pale lips together. "And who would you be?" she demanded, running her gaze over the boy's clothing, yet freezing on the key to the mansion still clutched in his quivering hand.

"I-I-I, well, ma'am, you see," he stammered.

The ice in the woman's gaze thawed, a mischievous grin played on her lips. "You, you're the sailor that's given a stroke to my master...the boy who gandered at his Johanna..." Her eyes returned to the boy's face. She studied him with consideration, contemplating the situation with her better discretion.

A thought slipped into the maid's mind, the image of little Johanna fleeing from the library, blood streaked in the girl's blonde hair, skin reddened in disturbance under the Judge and Beadle's hand. Tiny Johanna, the very same girl she had tended to for years with concealed sympathy, never daring to offer a hint of compassion for fear of the Judge's imminent punishment. "Never show her affection," Turpin had instructed her all those years ago, at least a week after he had swiped the child away from her dying mother."She shall learn to know love only from me."

The maid regarded Anthony, much like a browsing customer unsure of purchasing an item of escalating interest.

Struck dumb, Anthony tugged the hand holding the key closer to his thigh and kept it pressed there until the pressure bruised his skin. "Please, ma'am," he whispered, uncertain if she could have detected his words, being as shaken and hushed as they had been. In all honesty, he was not even quite certain what he was begging for; perhaps a pardon from his intrusion or leniency on her impending consequence.

"Gertrude," the woman corrected, keeping her voice calm, yet edged with a forceful tone that was best used when amongst the remnants of the house's staff or her master's ward. "What exactly are to be your intentions with the Judge's ward?" she brought herself to asking.

Anthony thought for a moment, the hesitance occupied with substantial contemplation. His mind had retreated from the notion of revealing his plan in its entirety to the woman, though she seemed to display a sensible predilection to him. Trust could extend only so far, and without forming the exact words in his mind, but feeling them burst free from his heart to his lips, he exclaimed, "I wish to make an angel smile."

The woman stepped back, as if a sturdy wind had toppled her delicate-boned structure, or the ghost of a passed loved one had appeared before her very eyes from the depths of the afterlife. She remained shaken, but shuffled forward. A deep breath, an inhale of steadying preparation, and a finger pointed towards the grand stairway. "Go up the stairs yonder, turn to your right, and there will be a hallway. Johanna's door is at the very end of the way to the left."

Anthony swayed a bit, gaining his composure with the spluttered utterance of his gratitude. "Yes, ma'am--Gertrude--and you have my thanks. A thousand blessings--"

"Yes, yes, yes, be sure to keep your feet quiet as you walk. You're as loud as the trotting of a horse, God as my judge." A glare took hold of her features with its icy force at a sudden , disconcerting notion. "One scream from he girl's lips and you're finished, you hear?"

Blinking in dismay, the boy jolted his head into a ridiculous sort of nod. "I will be a gentleman, of course."

"And, for the love of bleedin' Christ, knock on the girl's door before you enter. She'll surely know it ain't the Judge or Beadle if you knock." With a parting frown and a flaunt of her skirts, the maid executed a sharp turn and strode to the foyer's display of antique woodwork. She arranged a vase of crimson, lush roses to her liking and sent the tinniest of roses an undetectable caress with her finger, eying her work thoughtfully, remaining oblivious to her surroundings, like a child lost in her own picturesque world.

Quiet, due to the maid's request, Anthony Hope slipped past the entertainment room, past the tables polished until they glinted in the window's emitted light, the plump, garish divans, to the bottom of the beckoning stairway.

There was a moment's hesitance within the boy. The very air around him held an ominous aura to it, like hands of trepidation were slowly squeezing the breath from his chest, or a noose, taut in its mortal sentence, was tightening around his throat.

Fate's hand s nudged him forward until he ascended the steps on his own accord.

Just as Gertrude had instructed, Anthony reached the peak of the stairway, swiveled to his right, continued down the elongated hallway, and approached the last on his left. His hand grasped the doorknob, if only to assure himself that he was actually there and his other hand raised into the air. Fear was substituted with hastening adrenaline.

He rapped his knuckles lightly upon the painted oak.

There was no answer. Dismayed, Anthony applied his weight to the points of his toes and then to his heels. His hands clasped behind him as he awaited the girl's response, though he began to doubt her presence within the small room.

A good five minutes had passed, still no answer from the girl. Anthony swallowed, keeping his mannerisms in check, and knocked upon the door once more. The sound was a bit louder, but remained respectful to preserve the delicate sensibilities of the girl whose presence remained mysterious.

The light tap of feet sounded from the opposite side of the door, resting at the exit.

Joy blossomed in the boy's chest. "Miss," he whispered as he pressed his brow to the door.

The voice entangled the girl, the voice that did not belong to a maid, the Beadle, or her guardian. She cupped the doorknob in her hand. The judge had not locked her in the room for a considerable amount of time, Johanna thought to herself. He had been confident a lock would be excessive , that her own fear chained his ward to her room. His certainty was enough to satisfy.

And though she had not the slightest idea who rested outside of her door, why he was there, or what his exact purpose was, desperation remained prevalent and she opened the door to greet the stranger.

The door shuddered open and Johanna looked through the crack of space. The boy, the one that she had seen gawking through her window and had scooped up her key after she had thrown it upon the pavement, grinned at her with closed lips. Her blue eyes ran over his form, quick as to avoid discourtesy and satisfy her own curiosity in seeing him up close, and trained on his youthful face. Sandy hair brushed his shoulders in length, grey eyes were sparkled with scattered hints of light blue, much like London's sky on a good day, and his gentle expression held an appealing charm that most women would consider _handsome._

The smile stretched on his face faltered a bit at seeing the eyes of the girl, reddened with past shed tears of grief, the pale cheeks that had begun to sink over the course of the lonesome, forlorn days.

With notable effort, Anthony forced his smile to be that of proper geniality. "Hello, Miss Johanna," he said.

She nodded and mouthed, "Hello," stricken with inaudibility as a result of her lingering mistrust.

They both remained still, each staring into the other's eyes, one losing himself to the depths of her silent suffering, the other floating within the forbidden appeal of his immense integrity.

"I received this when you dropped it," he held the key out towards her," and I though that such a lonely girl deserved a visitor." His playful grin widened at her adorable, fading contortion. "If that is acceptable, Miss"

She sighed, defeated by her liking of the boy's lightheartedness, nodded once, and pulled the door to a wider open.

Anthony nodded in gratitude and stepped inside. His hands folded before him, he lowered hi s head, and awaited an opportunity to either speak or sir.

Johanna inched her way towards the guest, shying away from his cheerful eyes, his disarming smile. "You may sit if you wish, sir," she murmured, head askew.

"After you then, my lady."

She opened her mouth in shock, as if the boy had said something crude or of otherwise great offense. The expression fell to that of grief, a whisper carried through the room. "Little lady."

"Pardon, Miss?"

Johanna shook her head. Placing a phony smile on her lips, she sat upon the side of her mattress and tapped the unoccupied space next to her with the pads of her fingers. The boy consented to her invite and placed himself at the foot of her bed.

"May I ask you a question?" Johanna asked after yet another lengthy quiet.

"Certainly, Miss."

"How is it that you knew my name?"

Anthony shuddered from the sudden memory of how an angel's name had been his only reward after the punitive beating he had received from the Beadle's cane. "After he called me in, your guardian that is, told me during our proceeding conversation."

"Do you mean his proceeding accusation?"

"Well..." the boy's eyes fell to the soft bedspread.

"Sir, you're not the first to have been invited into the house after gazing into my window. I am quite certain that Judge Turpin accused you of something obscene." Her eyebrows scrunched. "They did not beat you?"

Torn between truth and falsehood to spare her worry, Anthony finally resorted to the truth at a certain extent. "It really was not all that bad, miss. The Beadle could hardly raise his hand over his head!"

Instead of laughter, she raised a brow. "But the Judge did have you beaten?"

To avoid the topic, Anthony swerved onto another in hopes of gaining some answers to his nagging questions. "Pardon me, Miss, but you make it seem as if you and the Judge are not truly intimate?"

"Intimate," she repeated, breathless.

Frenzied, Anthony chose his following words with more care. "I meant intimate as in a close, friendly, or personal manner."

She nodded, calming herself, and responded in a cool voice, solid in certainty. "He may be my guardian, but he is _not_ my father. I have no relation to him in blood or amicability, nor will I ever."

Anthony frowned at the resolute, grave way she spoke her words. "I understand, Miss."

Her stone gaze wavered and she blinked away oncoming tears. "I apologize for my harsh manner, sir. I haven't the right."

"You're not harsh, Johanna," the boy observed, leaning towards her. In a low voice, a lover's whisper, he said, "You are sad."

Shaking her head in denial, biting her lip, she felt her spirit thinning away, shattering. "I'm not sad, sir." It seemed almost pointless to deny the truth itself. She was not _sad_, she was _miserable_.

"There is nothing to be ashamed of, Miss. Sadness is a terrible thing, like an illness, yet some illnesses do have its cure." Again, the same cheerful smile that shined in reflection to her own listless expression."And I believe I know how to cure your sadness, Johanna."

Bitter laughter bubbled in her throat at the impossible claim. "And what would that be?"

"Freedom."

The word banned her severity, plunged her simmering negativity into dust. A light entered her room, the brilliant shine that had gone shaded for the washed out years now dancing in her sore eyes. "How?" she questioned, when her soul knew her inquiry to be a demanding plea. _Could this simple boy be the true answer to her fervent hope?_

He shifted to face her. To her surprise, he was no longer smiling, but the pleading of his eyes compensated for the lack of jovial grins. "Come away with me, Johanna. Come away with me tonight. I can make you happy. I can make the ghost of your smile return to life."

Her heart skipped to a pacing beat, his hand curled around her limp fingers.

"With you by my side, we will leave this dreadful place, see the world! We can depart on the next ship from London, and I swear to you, the name of your guardian shan't be spoken so long as you live."

Tears formed in her eyes and Johanna blushed crimson red at her embarrassing display and the boy's earnest, amorous offer.

"Marry me, marry me as soon as the winds take us elsewhere. Matrimony shall shield you if we are to fail."

The idea of marrying a perfect stranger was absurd to the girl, yet her gift of proper performance graced her. She smiled at the idea and agreed to his proposal, not expecting him to continue his speech, but to yearn taking her into bed as commemoration to their engagement, as any man in his position would do . Though her heart ached to cherish each word he said, to keep his pledges of undying love locked in heart as proof that a breathing human still held an ounce of compassion for her, Johanna kept a substantial distance between their bodies and minds. The girl would consent every so often to a word he uttered, thanking him after yet another compliment was bestowed on her concerning the striking beauty of her face or entrancing song. The very song that had entrapped him to begin with, a siren to a sailor.

Anthony, elated with joy, then spoke of himself in greater detail. He spoke of his adventurous experiences at sea, Captain Hoyt, the foreign lands filled with poisonous plants and intriguing natives, his dear shipmates, and even Mr. Todd, though that bit remained vague in aspect.

Her lack of response to his experiences, though she smiled absently and nodded her head, deterred him from continuing his tales, rather speaking in depth of their plans concerning their impending elope.

"I will be waiting for you outside at exactly eight o'clock tonight 'round the corner," Anthony began, pointing towards the girl's bedroom window. "As soon as you have packed your things, appear once at your window and seek out my face. Once I have seen you, I will know that you are prepared to leave." His eyes raised to her own in sudden anxiety. "You can slip from the house without being detected, can you not?"

Johanna raised the corner of her lip in a mysterious sort of smirk. "I have done it before."

To conceal his surprise, Anthony hunched his back, face bent. _She had already attempted escape?_ "Yes..and once you have stepped from the house, meet me just around that same corner. We will flee to Mr. Todd's house--"

"Mr. Todd?" Johanna questioned, interrupting him.

"Yes, dear, the man I rescued from the water well off the coast of--"

"I know that, sir, but why are we to slip away to Mr. Todd's house?"

"Because he has decided to keep you in his company for an hour at least while I seek out a coach, Johanna."

Her chest sank, terror made her teeth chatter. "You would leave me alone in a mere stranger's company?"

Detecting her notable fright, Anthony assured her, "Mr. Todd is a good man, Johanna, as I am sure you will see. I trust my life with him. Do not be sick with worry, darling, for you need to preserve your strength for tonight's run!"

Johanna shook her head and proceeded to bury her head in her hands.

Before her palms could cover her eyes, Anthony had grasped her fingers and pulled them to his chest, holding them close to his beating heart. Tension comingled with anticipation in the air until the near point of suffocation as the boy bent forward towards his intended's ashen, polished lips. "From the first moment I saw you, I have worshiped your very name. Now, the name means naught, it is the _girl _who has captured my heart." HIs fingers crept to the sides of her cheeks, assuring that she look him in the eyes. "I love you and I would never do anything to place you in jeopardy," he swore, determined to make the truth known and revered.

Unable to speak, heart hammering in her chest, fear leaking in her eyes, Johanna stammered, "Y-y-yes, sir...er...thank you."

Normally, Anthony would have been disheartened by her avoidance of repeating the three simple words that held the meaning of the world to any lovesick heart, but his eyes remained fastened on her lips and his thoughts were a wild race, a screaming storm that allowed no contemplation on any other matter than his infatuation. The sun was Johanna, the air was Johanna, the sea, _his_ glorious, frothing sea was Johanna.

"Kiss me?"

Unable to refuse, Johanna swallowed a flourishing cry and gave a quaking nod. The boy had not noticed her terror, and for that, she was thankful.

His lips slid onto the girl's, caressing them, his eyes fluttered to a savory close. He kissed her tenderly until he could just taste the florescence of her scent. Their mouths parted and Anthony paused before deepening the kiss until his hand coiled in her hair and the other curled into a ball against her lower back.

Johanna remained frozen against his touch, hands to her sides, mouth yielding to the boy's.

Lost in the contact, Anthony removed the hand from her back to stroke her cheeks with his thumb, and just when he brushed a tear that evaded her eyes, he yanked his mouth from hers and stared in disgraced regret. "I am sorry that I have caused you discomfort," he breathed, ashamed that he was still entangled in the heat of his passion.

The apology struck at Johanna's barriers and she felt herself place a hand on his breast. "Please do not apologize--" A light notion brought a hint of a grin to her mouth. "I am the one who apologizes! I should like to know the name of my savior!"

His crestfallen gaze lifted into an instant, frisky beam. "Anthony Hope!"

And for the first time in months, Johanna felt a giggle rise in her throat until pushing to her lips in a strangled squeal. The two children laughed, laughed at their own silliness, their naiveté, the dodgy arrangement that they thrust themselves into with only minutes of preparation to aid them.

"Anthony Hope? _Hope_?" she laughed, "That is a well suited name for you, Anthony!"

"You sound like Mr. Todd!" Anthony chuckled, "He said the very same thing! 'Well suited' indeed, Miss!"

Unaware of Anthony's devotion to the shady Mr. Todd, oblivious to the room around her where horror after horror had commenced, and besotted with the sight of a man smiling at her in adoration, pure benevolence, Johanna leaned her cheek against her shoulder and wept, giggling in soundless mirth.

The hilarity fell short.

"Johanna," Anthony cut her off, his voice a sudden harshness that caused a jump and a yelp of fright from the girl, "what in the world is that on your neck?"

Her hands flew to her throat and ran over the busied surfaces of her skin. Just this morning she had traced the purple marks that trailed across her neck, the very shape the same roundness of her guardian's fingers. Small cuts, the shape of a quarter moon, trailed her skin from the Judge's fingernails that had dug into her flesh during the few moments he had tried to throttle the life out of her. She had not seen him since then.

"Oh, that!" she snickered, the sound more tainted and forced than ever in her entire life. "It is nothing..." Soon the effort to deceive seemed as pointless as speaking and the words fell silent, the tears began to blur in her eyes and dripped down until seeping into the cracks of her lips. The salt stung for a moment and then no longer. "I...I...feel s-s-sick." Control deserted her, she heaved, her tears continued to spill over, her hands clutched at her trembling forearms.

Anthony seized her shoulders and propped her against the pillows. She sank into the plump material, half expecting the boy to lay by her side. To her shock, if not gratitude, he knelt to the side of the bed and stroked a lock of her hair fanned around her head like a golden crown.

"Rest," he soothed her in a whisper, "soon you'll be free of all of this."

On instinct, she grasped his hand and cried in hushed tones. She batted him away when he leaned forward to hold her, the marks on her skin a harsh reminder that the girl whose hand he clasped had been abused beyond conceivable means. She needed space, yet she needed comfort.

Anthony remained there for minute longer, until the girl was subdued, gained his footing, and stood tall over her huddled figure. His grin wavered and fell away. "I'll be going now to pack myself, dear. I shall be back at eight o'clock exactly. Wait for me until then." Anthony lowered to press his mouth to her hand, kissing it in tender compassion. "But for now, I think some sleep would be ideal."

A last reassuring smile, and he turned to exit the room.

"Anthony," Johanna called out, stopping from taking another step.

"Yes?" he asked. In a second, he was by her side, like a mourner aside a child's deathbed.

The beauty of her eyes was clouded in something mysterious, a melancholy he had observed within Mr. Todd's lone enervated eyes.

A thin, wavering finger pointed towards the foot of the bed. "Would you stay here, at the foot of my bed? Just until I fall asleep..."

The sailor paused.

"Please, Anthony," the small voice entreated. Blue eyes, the eyes he now knew he could never deny nor resist, smoldered his meager reluctance, and he sat himself at the end of the bed just as she had requested after a sigh of surrender.

Slurring from heavy fatigue, the kind that built on her after nights of sleepless torture, Johanna thanked him and pressed the side of her face into the pillow. When she squinted, Anthony's from grew distorted. Any man could be sitting at the foot of her bed, she thought as her stares skimmed the silhouetted figure, and she allowed her imagination to run free with the possibilities. Fantasy had been a game when she was a child; now, it was her lifeline, her one chance at survival.

Perhaps if she believed hard enough, her father would replace Anthony at the foot of her bed.

Anthony must have thought she had fallen asleep, she heard the sheets rustle as he stood and the moan of floorboards as he tiptoed from the room. Much as he tried, his steps still tapped against the wood with the volume of the Judge during one of his rapid proceedings.

Needless to say, she had a certain fondness for the sailor. Not only was he kindhearted, he was also the one chance she had to gaining her liberation. He seemed genuine, a boy she could have considered a friend had she known him a bit longer. Perhaps it was Anthony Hope's resemblance to her past friend, Peter, that tore at her heart the most.

Innocence was the boy's tragic flaw, though, for only a fool would have believed her when she agreed to fleeing southward to France in hopes of marriage and a life of united travels. Experience had slaughtered her interest in seeing foreign worlds; her _papa_ was her world, _the_ world, and forever would be.

A plan snapped into place, quick and precise: She would evade Turpin's home with the boy as her escort, and just when he would begin to lead her to the mystifying Mr. Todd's house, she would turn in the opposite direction and fly to 186 Fleet Street, running as if from Death itself.

In a way, she would be.

**And the plot thickens!**

**So, everyone, my birthday passed recently and the one gift I wish to receive is a nice review from my cherished readers and reviewers. Think about it, a review does not cost anything and takes less than a minute to give! Ha-ha! Now, I won't beg, but I will thank! Thank you all for previous comments as well as future ones!**

**J'adore mes lecteurs! **


	34. Chapter 34

**Chapter 34**

**Fleet Street, London**

Like a thick river of warm liquid, blood dripped from the sweltering kettle's surface with puffs of steam as Sweeney Todd sent it crashing into the head of his once competing barber. The false Italian gurgled, the proceeding cries that of astonishment, his eyes racing in his skull in a mad chase, and collapsed the floor. The resonant thud made the windows shudder, the floor creak under the laden of the man's body.

Once his prey had crumpled to the floor in a pitiful heap, Todd's relentless blows grew in force due to the newfound vantage point, each sound of metal against flesh echoing its metallic clang around the spacious room. He continued to bludgeon the man just as he had in Cape Town, when the officer had not only threatened his life, but without even knowing it, the life of his endangered daughter.

Davey, the little imp whom he had hired for no longer than a month, as he could remember, now a fraudulent crook; the measly, cockney lad that Lucy had mended his torn shirts for or giggled at his occasional joke when lolling about the shop without even a thought of sweeping up customer's discarded hair. Not an apprentice to Benjamin Barker, an assistant, yet he had the audacity reveal himself as such after strutting into Todd's shop, demanding a handsome sum in return for his silence against his old master's identity. It was the razors that had betrayed Todd's alias, nothing more than that, but such recognition proved fatal.

At first, the man seemed to have a hint of respect for Benjamin, the glint of his eye's wonder shining in the pale light of London's overcast sky. Davey swung the razor in the air before his eyes, letting it click into its place with a sharp swivel of his wrist, like a child and his toy. "Always an inspiration, you were, Benjamin Barker. Your spouse, Lucy, was that her name?"

No response.

"Well, your_ wife_ was a kind lady," he acquired a wolf grin, "and a looker, if I might add. Though I do wish I could have been there for the birth of your daughter, seeing that you _let me go," _the words grew harsh, brittle as winter twigs, "before the child came along."

Sweeney had stood, motionless, before the window, lost in the faint memory of his vanished family and the words of Davey. Davey Conner.

"Ah, but I don't feel so bad, yeh see! Because after they had your sorry carcass hauled off to the desert, I got to see your pretty daughter grow up through her window every Thursday I visited the market! Must say, had you not changed, sir, she probably would have looked a bit more like yeh!" Davey chuckled. "But I suppose it's safe to say that you both share the same facial shape." He traced his chin as a model structure. "Roundish…" The tone of the man fell. "And, like her father, there's been a fair share of rumors around town…People say she was sent to Botany Bay! Ain't that grand?" He clapped his hands and stifled growing laughter. "Oh, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree…" The humor of the conversation converted to casualty, like a dinner conversation. "And then, of course, there are the accurate rumors about the Judge's ward screaming to high heavens every night as Lord knows what goes on inside of that mansion…" His hand waved off the information in apathy.

Sweeney's brow drew together, his lips thinned until they were pale strips upon his face, grimacing in horror at both the depressing news of his child and how it had been delivered. Pain, much like fire in his throat, shrank his shoulders to half their size, wilted his spine.

"Sad, is it not? Your daughter living with the very men who imprisoned you…Judge Turpin, I reckon you remember him, and the Beadle, a particular pal o' mine. One Barker imprisoned and another taken in. The world can be so bloody ironic, don't you think, Mr. Barker?"

Though Sweeney felt a portion of his mind agreeing to the last bit of Davey's speech, he kept the silence pure and uninterrupted.

Bored by his own mindless rambling, the barber began to reach the sole purpose of his visit with peaking enthusiasm at his formulating threat. "I'll tell the Beadle. I'll tell all of 'em who you are, Benjamin Barker, unless we split your earnings, half and half, for the duration of your profession here in London," 'Pirelli', had said. "I wouldn't suggest refusing' me, now." The man's face lit like a candle at a sudden notion, entertaining, intimidating. "Wouldn't that'd be a story, eh? Convict barber escapes from notorious Botany Bay!"

Without being detected, Todd paced by the side of his barbering table and slipped a razor into his hand. The immediate coolness in his palm seeped control in his blood, yet gave him the prominent assurance of protection for himself and his daughter. It would take a blood-soaked battle for his Johanna to be lost to him, not the threat of a phony Italian.

"Come now, Benjamin Barker," Davey's voice drew closer to the back of the immobile ex-con's head. "Oh, do forgive me…Come now, _Sweeney Todd. _Do we got us a deal, _Mistah Sweeney Todd-a?!" _he questioned in his mock accent. The rest of his speech, now ridiculing laughter, rang in Mr. Todd's ears like bullet shots from the colony; the ones that would always end up sinking into the vulnerable flesh of a man he had known, a man who had lost nearly everything until a little angel came bounding up to his barrack on a sultry Australian morning.

She had been threatened. He could not have that.

And now Sweeney Todd stood, breathing in if only to lose air to the chest-crushing adrenaline. Never had he killed a man like that, save for the one guard in Africa, and that had been when his family's welfare had been threatened. But, then again, he began to think, there was not much of a difference between the two incidences, save the fact that the man—the man whom he had just pounded to a pulp with a piping tea kettle—was bleeding Death, and his servant boy was right below, eating one of Lovett's grotesque pies. No doubt, the boom that ensued after Davey had fallen to the floor had been heard and, no doubt, the boy would be running up the stairs within moments. Still, such thoughts seemed trivial, and the desire to rest his quaking knees, ease his churning stomach, had never been more superior. Not even on one of the Australian penal marches.

He collapsed into his padded chair, head rolling on the edge of the seat, and eliminated any twinge of grief he felt in killing his once admiring employee with a deep, steady sigh. It was as if Sweeney Todd was purging a toxin, one that would deter him from his main objectives: Kill the Judge. Retrieve Johanna. Anyone or anything that stood in the way of those two objectives were as good as dead, and that had been long since settled.

But, there were greater tasks at hand, for the sound of a frantic child's voice could be heard on the lower level. It would be a matter of seconds before the lad came bounding up the steps, bursting into the shop to search for the master that would never be there to claim him.

_Pity_.

With a fresh burst of vigor, Sweeney leapt from the seat and bent forward to inspect the body. Todd's fingers suspended inches before Davey's mouth, and the moist trickle of breath against his skin assured the barber that the man was unconscious, not yet dead.

A groan slipped past his lips. Whether the nuisance of hiding an unconscious man or the nipping pain in his legs caused such a reaction, he did not know, but both elements were equivalent in fault when it came to his grating nerves and sadistic head ache. The whole goddamn world was against him.

The trunk to the side of his shop squeaked open, the sound long forgotten once the enclosed space proved to be accommodating for a grown male's body. Sweeney lifted the body by its head, stuffing the upper section into the box first. Then came the man's torso, his thighs, and finally his feet, all crammed into the tiny space, hidden from sight, and the tap of the shutting trunk coinciding with the slam of the Mrs. Lovett's shop door.

Pirelli's cape soaked up the blood from the floor and mopped up whatever water had managed to evade the kettle. Todd then threw that and Davey's hat into the trunk as well.

Footsteps began to rush up the stairs, straight for his shop.

The teakettle still singed his hand as he picked it up around its belly and brought it to the stovetop. Frantic, he tore around the shop in desperation for a cup to pour himself a drink. Inconspicuousness was so damn elusive.

"Signor, you have an appointment with your tailor!" the boy called as he came crashing into the shop. Stopping short, he swept the shop with a clean, quick gaze, as if looking for anything that stood out amongst the normality of an everyday shop. Smart lad, yet not smart enough.

It took a good two minutes to persuade the boy to leave, and only would he do so with the promise of gin fresh in his mind. There was a bounce in his young step as he bounded down the stairs to claim his alcohol like any young, working boy would.

Mr. Todd, thankful that the boy had not spotted his master's hand prodding out of the trunk and twitching like a vile insect, placed the cup down and replaced his hand's empty hold with an eager razor. The lid to the trunk was lifted, Todd's breath cut short at the bloody heap of Davey. Sudden anger seized hold. This man was not Davey, at least not the Davey he had begun to remember. The man, crushed into an awkward, enervated position, bleeding from his mouth, and crawling upward to gasp his breaths, was Pirelli, the barber of shams, of competition, of threats.

So, with all guilt washed away and fear ground into dust, Sweeney knelt forward and opened his razor to reveal the sharp edge. He let out a last steadying gasp, the dying breath of virtue, and then grasped the man's depressed scalp.

The razor dug deep into Pirelli's jugular, burrowing into the flesh of its new home. It sliced the compacted veins like a knife to paper; the blood licked his silver blade and gushed down the struggling prey's neck, its warmth seeping deep into the barber's shirt and blossoming crimson petals onto the starch-white coloring. Pirelli opened his lips with burbling, frantic moans, perhaps calling for assistance that the dimming light assured he would never acquire. The man's body, now plagued with convulsions, shook like a dead man tossed into the ocean's tumbling waters for its hungry claiming. His eyes were opened in silent terror, and after the blade had cut through the meat of his throat and his head dangled near the point of complete decapitation, Sweeney Todd pushed Pirelli back into the dark recesses of the trunk. Blood still sloshed from the male's wounds, spraying a thick coating onto Mr. Todd's hands, the bottom of the box, and the flow of red gore stopped once the man was completely packed inside and the lid to the trunk slipped shut.

This time, the barber stood in cool composure after the task had been fulfilled. Movements careful, graceful, with the hands he had been graced with the day of his birth, Sweeney polished the blood from his razor using a sullied rag and wiped his friend clean of any remaining gore.

The baker's eventual return was expected; her response to the brutal killing even more so until she had heard his tale within a few hushed words. Once blackmail had been brought into the subject, Mrs. Lovett sighed in relief towards the Italian's demise; any traces of worry for her beloved barber's sanity vanished, replaced by the growing concern for the young child whose master had just been slaughtered and crammed into a compacted trunk.

Though he was a tad bit surprised, if not dissuaded, by her iron determination to keep the boy and her willingness to allow murder to take place so long as no one had lost their mind, Sweeney demanded she send to the boy up to his shop. He would have thought of something, a lie maybe that would have convinced the boy to leave, but he could not have let the woman know of his intentions. She needed to fear him, it was the only way she would remain his accomplice to the task, even when she seemed all too eager to go along with his fanatic desires.

Of course, the stubborn Mrs. Lovett refused to allow him to kill the child as he was formulating a way to convince the boy that he was free of his master and should seek out some sort of shelter elsewhere; the idea ridiculous enough to stir aggravation. That boy would not have been the first to die at the relentless hand of an older male, he had seen that. Why should he hold hesitance in slaughtering a child?

_Because you have one of your own_, a mock voice of his blasted conscience pointed out.

"Let the lad stay, Mr. Todd, help around the shop a bit," she suggested, a smile of slight sympathy playing on her lips. "Your poor knees ain't up to the work I 'ave in mind."

He bit back a response in hopes of obtaining proper euphemism in a woman's presence, but his thoughts, as usual, would not be silenced.

_You are correct, Mrs. Lovett, my knees are not exactly what they used to be. When an aggravated officer, irate because you are collapsing from the heat and you blackened his eye before he could molest you the week prior, smashes your kneecaps with jagged rocks to the point of unconsciousness, then we can have an enjoyable conversation on my body and the mint condition it has been graciously left in._

_For now, however, I would be deeply honored if you sod the hell off and leave me in the presence of my thoughts and a dead, lurid, phony Italian compressed into that trunk yonder._

"Alright, keep the boy 'ere."

The woman grinned in wordless victory, not allowing a glimpse of her smile to be caught by the barber. She never did.

As he gazed outside of the window and ignored the baker's conclusive thoughts on parenting a deprived, adolescent boy with sole dependence on gin, a head of graying hair caught his keen eye's hold. A man was pointing to the shop window by his companion's side, ample in bodily proportion, an eager grin on his malicious face.

Judge Turpin. Beadle Bamford.

The man's thoughts shot throughout his skull, then collided into each other with a shattering clash that was near deafening. His blood rose to a simmer, anxiety, anticipation rolled through his flipping stomach in nauseating turns. The air around him was suddenly blistering, worse than any Australian summer sun, and the words tangled in his dry throat. "G-g-get…out."

Leaning forward, the woman questioned, "What, love?"

"Get out!" he shouted, all sounds rushing past his closing throat and startling the baker with an unnatural recoil from the looming barber. She sent him a worried glance, but did not object to his command. The door shut behind her, the usual chime of the door's bells now resembled the dying squawk of garroted birds.

Just as he threw on his coat to conceal his blood-stained sleeve, the door opened and slammed shut once again. The barber twisted his body to face the guest, uncertain if he would face both the Judge and Beadle or one of the two. Even as his thoughts yearned for both to be in his shop for an equal opportunity to have their throats sliced, Todd remembered that killing two grown men simultaneously was a task that not even the strongest of convicts had been capable of accomplishing. One man was better than no man.

And there was the one man, Judge Turpin, ridiculing him with a lone glance, studying the shop with superior stares of demeaning spite. "Mr. Todd?"

The man's voice, disgusting, a monotone of Death, still brought a sliver of coldness into the base of Sweeney's spine. He squirmed free of the discomfort and attempted to play superiority when he knew that an ex-con, face to face with the Great Judge, was as worthy as a rat to an officer's boot. "Yes, my lord, and a pleasure it is to receive your patronage."

"Do you know me, Mr. Todd?"

_Praise him. _

"Who does not know the hallowed Judge Turpin, the very man whose name is on even the lowest of society's lips?"

The Judge nodded in appeased concurrence. "Well, yes…" he muttered, walking forward, skimming the surface of the barbering table.

Ice crept into Todd's blood at a sudden thought: the picture of Lucy was perched beside the bowl of cream and the box of razors.

Instinctive, the man paced forward and pressed his hands to the great Judge's shoulders. The action was of slight offense to the renowned man; he swiveled to face the barber with a stormy glare. "Mr. Todd?"

The picture could not have been noticed.

"Shall I pamper you now, sir? A trim of your hair in accordance to the latest styles, a skin massage, pumice stone? I am at your disposal, sir." He smirked to himself. Who was the one _really_ about to be disposed?

The judge raised a hand, keen participation adding a merry tone to the room's taut air. "A girl, you see, with the song of a linnet, aesthetic such as that of a flower, has stolen my heart with the virtuous sin of splendor. I have gone to mad lengths in assuring the girl's welfare, caring to her every whim, devoting myself to asceticism, though she has yet to take notice of my efforts." He caressed the side of his chin, trailed with stubble. "A proper grooming, I should think, will win my beloved Johanna's favor in both confidence and matrimony. If you will, I prefer a shave to commence the pampering."

Hate, shock, torment, grief these all ripped at Sweeney Todd's body, inside and out, like thousands of hands had seized him and began to tear his limbs clean off until he bled only sorrow, no longer blood. "Johanna," he rasped in reply, more of repetition. "You…marry…Johanna…" His daughter, his _child_, married to the man that had raped his wife in a brutal act of strategized lust.

"Yes, as soon as she has agreed to the arrangements. My reasoning for arriving here is to charm the girl into compliance. If you would kindly do your job," he raised a brow, as if daring him to deny his service, "then your reward will be handsome, you commendation in rivalry to the sum."

Closing his eyes, Sweeney muffled the screams in his mind, some of which were beginning to form in his chest, and nodded. His smile tightened, the darkness of his eyes remained untouched by the expression. "Of course, sir, if you will please sit, I will do just as you ask." He led the judge to the chair, away from the picture of his wife and child, frozen in timeless bliss. Before their lives had been torn and ended. They watched them now, the two angels watched their Benjamin place a corrupt judge into his chair, reveal the razor's edge, pierce the man's neck with his eyes. They stared at the furious ex-convict, the callous executioner of a judge, one a tormentor, one tormented. And still they smiled.

The towel was wrapped, the shaving cream applied, the razor put to work, cutting away the stubble upon Turpin's chin when the barber wished to slit his neck at the very first stroke of metal upon skin. The judge made small talk, the predominant topic that of women and their untouchable beauty or his ward's irrevocable charm. All the while, Sweeney kept at his work and feigned ignorance when the man spoke of Johanna, her golden waves, her enrapturing eyes, the very eyes that haunted him at night along with her pleas begging he hide her, never let her go. He remembered prying his angel's fingers from his shirt just after that.

"I, however, do not find the girl faultless. The child can prove to be quite problematical…Always challenging my advances," he sighed, lost in his own memories.

Sweeney's hand jerked, his teeth clenched until they chattered with rage. He leaned in towards the Judge's ear and muttered in a sharp whisper, a gleam of madness in his eye as his breath brushed the enemy's hair. "Better not _touch_ her."

"Pardon me?" Turpin exclaimed. Aghast, he averted his head towards the barber. "Did you say something, barber?"

He still glared at the judge, no longer pretending to hold a fondness for the man. "How 'bout we finish off your shave, eh?"

The Judge parted his lips, whether to agree or object, Todd would never know, for Anthony Hope, the boy that had saved his life, nursed him to health, promised his daughter's protection, burst through the shop's doors and began his rampage of plans concerning the Judge's ward. "I've seen Johanna, Mr. Todd! She swore to leave with me tonight! Our arrangement…is…" Anthony then caught sight of Turpin, his beloved's guardian, and for once since Todd's meeting with the boy, he spotted a flame of anger in the boy's glare rather than fear. The flame, however, was naught to the raging fire of boiling hatred inside of Sweeney Todd. And then, there was the suffocating grasp of a sentiment he was somewhat accustomed to: failure.

"You, the impudent sailor, are eloping with my ward? My betrothed fiancé?"

How odd it was to hear such possessiveness of his daughter from the mouth of a man who held not a drop of her blood, not a fragment of fathering compassion.

"Betrothed? You mean to marry the girl you swore to parent?" Anthony demanded, quiet voiced, but heard just as clear as if he were shouting.

"My business is none of yours, you repugnant son of a whore!" he spat, and not one man in the room was taken aback by the Judge's use of profanity. It merely depicted the true malice within. "And since Johanna _is_ my business, she will be locked away for this outrage, far from any wandering eyes and conniving bastards such as you. That little slut will never see sunlight again." Standing straight, he ripped the towel from his chest. "No man will stare at her, and no man will _ever_ elope," he donned his coat in heated haste, "with _my_ property."

Sweeney remained passive, unmoving in the corner of the room as the Judge's words stabbed his pulsing heart into a listless pulp. His chest was caving in and the surrounding room had plunged into sudden blackness. There was no light in this world, no smiling photographs, no walks in the sun sprinkled market from his vivid dreams, no memories of a gurgling child, a beaming wife. But there was blood. Blood on his hands, blood on _her_ hands, blood _everywhere_. Blood splattered on silver.

It was then he realized the truth that he had prevaricated since his arrival in London, the truth that had taken whatever humanity tucked in his soul and obliterated it.

He would _never_ see his daughter again.

"And you, barber, would be wise to serve your remaining customers well, for I will never return to this shop again!" The judge had left, the door's slam now ringing in the barber's blank mind. If only he had killed him, he would have rid himself of the vulture forever; he would have had the chance to reclaim his child.

He had lost; there was nothing left for his consolation but a desire for vengeance. No--a salvational _hunger_ for vengeance—was all that remained.

A_ll_ that remained.

"Mr. Todd, dear Lord, he's going to lock her away! Please, you must help me! I'll will be forever in you debt, sir!"

"There…there…is nothing…I can…do," the immobile barber breathed.

"Please, we must think of something. Think of Johanna, sir, she is so helpless, so vulnerable! You must understand, she had—"

"Stop it, Anthony; I cannot…" His chest burned, he could not breathe, and he could not even hope to gain a remnant of his sight back. In his own head's prison, that is where he was; locked away in the solitary confinement of his mind. God, he was going to die right then and there. He might as well.

"She's in danger! I saw the bruises on—"

"I DON'T GIVE A **FUCK**, ANTHONY! SHE'S **GONE**!! ACCEPT IT! NOW **GET OUT**!" he stumbled forward; arms held out, hands opened like the claws of a ravenous predator. In his hand, the silver of his razor wept at the absence of its crimson coating.

The boy staggered backwards, the flare of his anger subdued by his own fear. The door shut with a shriek of chimes as he departed in a mad whirl. Tears threatened to overflow his lids, sobs built in the back of his throat. During his flight, blinded by his own grief, he bumped into a frantic Mrs. Lovett.

"What the 'ell is goin' on up there?" she demanded after wrenching the boy to face her by his sleeve. Her skin seemed to have paled to a glossy white.

"I ran into Mr. Todd when he was shaving that-_that _corrupt _tyrant_!" Anthony cried, voice beginning to crack as he pointed to the fading form of the incensed judge, "and now the judge is to lock Johanna away. Mr. Todd will hear nothing of her! I must tell him about Johanna, but now, the man's _lost his mind_!"

As if to prove a point, a loud crashing sound emitted from the top of the stairway. Mrs. Lovett gave the door a wary look, but did not start. "Alright, son, wait in me shop. I'll get things settled with Mr. Todd."

The boy shook his head in silent appreciation. Just as he turned to enter the shop, he sent the barber's shop a quick glance. "I'm starting to think that Mr. Todd just does not seem to understand Johanna's predicament at all, nor my own!"

"Oh, believe me, dear," Mrs. Lovett would have laughed, had the moment not been interrupted by another resounding thud on the second floor, "He is well aware of Johanna's predicament…and he wants to help, he really does, it's just difficult." Her eyes trailed the forewarning stairs, and then snapped back to the distressed sailor. "Now, sit yeh down, I'll be back in a tick."

With a settling breath, the woman gathered all the courage required to reach the stair's peak and knock upon the shop's door. "Mr. T, yeh need to talk, love?"

There was another crash, this one slamming against the door, the spot happening to be where her very head was. If the door had not been there, the object would have most likely knocked her unconscious with its savage force.

"I'm taken that as a '_yes_'," the baker muttered, swinging the door to an open and stepping inside, her feet crushing fragments of a thrown porcelain bowl. Its contents, shaving cream, painted the floor with thick foam.

The barber, like a broken warrior, now flung a hairbrush into the already shattered mirror in the shop's corner. Shards of glass clattered to the floor. Still, it was not enough to appease.

"_**I'll kill them all**_!" he swore to the ceiling, when it was really to the heavens, to the nonexistent God himself. "_**Watch me as I do it! I'll slaughter every pig in this shit-hole town until I drop dead**_!"

The woman had made no attempt to abate his fury. Best, she thought, to let it drain from him, and once it had, he would collapse from fatigue. Any human being would be exhausted from the tantrum Mr. Todd was throwing already, but Sweeney's nightmarish experiences and firm odium separated him from most. A new line of thought crossed her mind. His natural humanity had died out long ago.

"Lock away Johanna, you sick bastards!?" he thrust a fist against the large shop window, as if to somehow shatter the image of London that it displayed in mock show. "She's a _child_, god damnit!" His hand drew blood after the proceeding punches at the wall; the cracking bones a mere inconvenience in his ongoing tirade. "A CHILD!! _**MY**_ CHILD!!"

Determination in his stride, Sweeney took an arm and swept it across the table of lotions and perfume bottles; even the box of opened razor clattered to the floor in the pile of splintered rubble and runny streaks of fragrance. The straight-edges clattered into a heap of shining duplicity.

Lucy and Johanna's picture remained untouched.

Mrs. Lovett, being a brave if not audacious woman, walked towards the raging man without an ounce of detectable fear. This man was wild, with the instincts of an animal, and like an animal, he could sense her fears as if they were his own. After all, fear had been a daily ritual for the broken spirit that now sent his barber chair crashing to the chair.

Before he could do anymore damage, he froze in mid-assault, hands still raised in the air, fingers clenched into fists that quivered, in both suppressed rage and unnerving astonishment.

For wrapped around his heaving torso were the arms of his landlady, and pressed against his rigid shoulder was her bony, sunken cheek.

She, the vivacious baker, his home's proprietor, the chatty woman that he had always seen but never known, the one whose eyes had been buried in sparse, cracked thoughts, was _holding_ him.

Sweeney Todd remained there, frozen.

**I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, but I am sure you will like the next one even better! It will be up as soon as possible; I'm already starting it! Sort of general with the storyline for the sake of the plot, I suppose one could say I'm "setting the stage", though I tried to add bits that obviously did not happen in the movie for this part.**

**Please continue to review, and if you have not already, then I encourage you to do so! (As if you all haven't heard **_**that**_** a thousand damn times.)**

**Thank you!!**


	35. Chapter 35

**Warning! Warning! We have a dark chapter ahead of us, my friends. And seeing that this story is based on Sweeney and Johanna, such an incident can occur at either home. It is nothing too graphic like many of the other stories I have stumbled upon, but it may be a bit…disturbing. My apologies in advance if it is really all too much to handle, though, if my opinion counts for anything, I believe you are all mature enough to cope. I've written about it here before.**

**Otherwise, enjoy.**

**Chapter 35**

**Fleet Street, London**

He let himself fade away in her embrace, a shattered man on the brink of death itself, and slumped into his chair after she led him to it. He could not say that he found comfort within the woman's touch, but perhaps at the imaginative thought of it being his daughter who held him, or his wife's lost soul, and that the contact had been parted in final farewell. But the memory of his child had to remain alive, and he would do so with one last recollection of his little daughter. After this day, reality was to be predominant and his mind, like a cluttered cell, no longer had room for wishful thinking, for dreams that someday his daughter would be _his_ once again or his Lucy would burst into her room, fainting in his arms with his name pressed upon her lips.

Mrs. Lovett gave a thoughtful shake of her head. "Relax, love, yeh need to rest," she said as she pressed down on his shoulders. Anthony Hope's presence invaded her mind; she turned to the door with the sole intention of retrieving him.

Her hand had just grazed the doorknob when the barber began to speak, his low voice cutting the taut air that bound them.

"I thought she was my wife when I first saw her step into my barrack. It was a hot mornin', almost too hot for Australian winter. The men all swarmed around her when she first stepped inside. Some had already ripped their jackets off." He shook his head, the slight movement barely detected. "I understood what their intentions were. Not that I forgave them for it…but I understood."

Turning towards her business partner, the woman's eyes squinted in inquisitiveness, and her hand fell from the door.

An isolated look crossed the barber's face. "A man had pushed her about, hoping she would fall into his mate's chest. They would have pinned her down…and…and done what prisoners do." His voice fell hoarse. "She fell into _my_ chest instead, and I steadied her before she could fall."

"Who do you mean, dear?" Lovett questioned while moving in towards Todd. He did what a portion of her reasoning predicted he would do: He remained oblivious to her words.

"I remember her thankin' me, though I was cold towards her. She reminded me of those I only wished to forget. I couldn't think when I first saw her, and when she told me her name was Johanna, I…I couldn't _breathe_."

A sharp gasp from the woman was all that betrayed her shock, soon silenced by her own fingers. Her head began to swim with thoughts, with possibilities that she had merely conjured in her already frazzled mind but had never considered in greater depth.

She knew with blazing accuracy what he was saying. Could she believe it?

"I couldn't help but be relieved when I left her, and at the same time, I was curious. A part of me wanted to know her…to watch over her. A part of me I was sure had long since died away."

Returning to the side of the chair, the woman knelt and clutched at its arm. For once, it was he who spoke and she who listened.

"Then the night came when she was thrown in the men's barrack, the same barrack as my own. Most of the men were beside themselves, others were hesitant to hurt her. She was so frightened, went half-mad when that James's," he spat the name, "battered her."

His brisk tone grew softer, a voice of a father's grief. "Small thing, she was, barely anything in my arms when I carried her to my bunk. Once I had seen the marks on her head, her tears…the _anger _I felt." Smoldering darkness dwelled in his gaze for a brief moment, and then vanished. "Strangely enough, she was not afraid of being placed on my cot or the moments I stared at her, waiting for something to convince me that she was," he sighed, "my daughter."

Mrs. Lovett's fingers tightened their grip around the chair's padded sides.

"Her small hand had rested on my cheek," he traced the exact area of his skin, dazed, "and on the night she said her father had been boated to Botany Bay when she was a child, her guardian was Judge Turpin, and her last name was Barker, I knew the truth. Much as I tried to deny it, I knew." A wave of sorrow wiped his face clean of any joy, any hatred. "She called me her angel. Of all things she could have said…_angel_."

Sniffing a bit, the woman's eyes plummeted and rose once more at the sound of her barber's throaty, yet gentle, tone.

"I vowed, when I held her to me for the first time in fifteen years, that I would protect her…Even if it meant putting my own life to an end."

In a burst of shock, Mrs. Lovett panted, "So _that_ was 'ow yeh met 'er? Little Johanna in prison?"

The man turned to stare at her, nothing detectable in his gaze. "For theft…bread…after she ran away. I was glad she did, can you believe that? I was glad my own daughter had been carted away to that damned dessert…"

"O' course yeh loved her, though! It brought yeh two together. So why are yeh givin' 'er up, head bent with talk of forgetting her?" Mrs. Lovett echoed her thoughts, prudence the hindmost of her concerns.

His face twisted, a stab of pain could be discerned in his ghastly eyes. "She was a reminder of Lucy, the woman I can barely remember. She was a living, breathing thing that needed me…after years of absolutely nothing…I was _needed. _I nourished her, protected her…admired her when she slept. And the men all wanted her, but they couldn't have her. This time, I had something that _they_ wanted and something _they_ couldn't have."

Could she blame him for his desire for possession, a lust to cling onto a remnant of whatever he could grasp that was a fragment of his past?

"But the judge got 'er back?"

"He sent a letter. I don't know 'ow he found out, but he did." His eyes narrowed to slits, blackened like coal. "The son of a bitch separated me from my family, not once—twice!" Again, the same miserable moan was heard. "Johanna begged me to hide her away, clutched on to me shirt,_ cried_…" a shriveled whisper, then he continued, "and I pushed her away…I took her fingers from my arm and...I let her cry…alone."

Standing straight, Mrs. Lovett declared in a chirpy voice, "Well, that settles it all. You've got to get your daughter back and I have to," she turned to the door, an odd humor creeping into her tone, "retrieve that bloody sailor before he gets at my gin!"

He, too, shot to his feet, a fresh glint of alarm in his glance. "No, Lovett," he sputtered while snatching her arm in an unforgiving grip. "You can't...she's gone."

"Like hell, she is! Come now, we can discuss this with the sailor…"

"No, no, don't bother…don't bother…I'll never see her again," the barber groaned in weak protest, and the baker was already halfway down the stairs when his pleas had reached their conclusion. He glanced at the empty doorway, vision clouded with unwelcomed mist. He greeted such sentiment with a low growl and a wrist to his red-rimmed eyes.

The sailor sat alone, swigging the dregs of his beverage in idle, melancholy movements. He bolted upright at the sight of the frazzled baker, storming into her shop with a new sense of determination, a bold boom to her otherwise gentle speaking voice. "Come on, sailor, Mr. T's reached his senses."

Enthralled at his companion's stability, the boy stood to his feet and bestowed a gentleman's smile to the woman who had managed to tame the beast's fury. "Thank you, ma'am; your assistance in the matter is most appreciated."

She waved off his gracious speech, though she did so with a playful grin and a favorable glint in her eye. "Think nothing of it, love. Now, follow me up this way."

When both sailor and baker had reached the barber's shop, and the sailor had grimaced at the shop's vindictive disarray, the room submitted to a pregnant calm, the same calm that always held a forewarning impression to it. Nothing good ever came of it.

Todd gave an absent stare towards his family's aged photograph, his structure like a wilted flower's stem, eyes like the new moon shadowed by the darkness of transparent clouds. The pottery of his shaving cream bowl cracked beneath his boots.

"Mr. Todd," Anthony murmured, cleared his throat, and brought his tone to a leveled pitch, "I must discuss Johanna with you."

The man took no notable head of Anthony, but his mind was digesting each one of the boy's words in careful consideration. _How could he dismiss the subject of his own child in apathy?_

Seeing that Mrs. Lovett maintained a respectful smile, and Todd had yet to disrupt his speech, Anthony Hope continued. "I only hope my words shall convince you to aid me in Johanna's liberation, sir. Please, hear me."

Silent, the man jerked his head to the side, and his eyes scrolled down Hope's lean frame. He did not verbally agree; he did not have to.

"When I had first confronted Johanna, within the Judge's home only an hour prior, I noticed sadness surrounded her, like a thickness of fear about her. I had subdued these scruples, but I had not dismissed them. And then, the moment she seemed to have been at ease, I caught sight of the bruising around her neck. Finger marks, Mr. Todd."

The man did not seem surprised by the news, and he would have scolded himself if he had. To have expected the judge to care for his daughter due to parental obligations would have been blasphemous. Hell, he would not have been surprised to know that the bastard had married her that night, and punished her the perusing morning.

And though he had long since forsaken the hope to see his daughter again, the thought of Judge Turpin simply staring at her, chaste in her mother's beauty, stirred a raw anger in the pit of his stomach. He bent forward and retrieved a shining razor from the mass of spilled utensils, admiring its shine, drawing his mind to a blank. This was the point of no return, giving her away. He would always love Johanna, but there was no use in clinging to old memories. He had to give her away...

"Finger markings…and that only proves my point and heightens her plain desperation. She's been hurt, sir, and that tyrant plans to lock her away? So that she may endure such torment for the duration of her life or as long as time _permits_ her to live?" Shaking his head, his eye brushed the barber's chair, with grimacing. "No, I cannot allow it." He offered a kind glance, but did not smile. "If I could have your assistance, Mr. Todd, then Johanna's safety will be ensured. If you would help me search for her should she not be able to meet me tonight," stepping forward, he ignored the man's obvious discomfort, "then her life can be saved. Will you help me, Mr. Todd?"

Wide eyed, the barber's gaze flew to the baker, to the aged frame, and finally rested on the razor he clutched with a devoted fervor. He spoke in a cool, accepting tone that crushed the boy's chest in a single blow. "Son, we have spent some time together…and I would hope that my opinion should count for something after so long."

"That and more, Sir; please, what do you wish to say?"

"Forget the girl."

The man's tone had indicated his next few words to be deflating, yet once the actual command had been delivered, like a prisoner's sentence, Anthony could feel his eyes flicker shut and a fresh pain squeeze the blood from his face. "Sir, please," he choked, "don't say that…"

Composed, Sweeney Todd paced the floor to stand before the young sailor, so shielded from the world's intricacies. "There's no use hopin' to find her. She belongs to the Judge, and it would be foolish to cross a man of his social standing."

The boy shook his head in a vigorous twitch, the desperate air about him smothering. "No, Mr. Todd, I can't…she needs me…" His pure voice cracked, a hand flew to shield his eyes from the window's burning light, from London altogether.

In a gruff voice, Todd retorted, "I'm sorry, son." He slid his hand to the boy's shoulder and began to lead him to the shop's exit. "You have to forget."

With sudden fury, a glare of steel determination, Anthony Hope shot to the front door, flinging it open as the bells shrieked. "Your apathy may very well allow you to forget, Mr. Todd, but I will not forget nor will I rest until Johanna is liberated." Before the door could close, his concluding words brought a chill through the base of Todd's spine. "I'm all she has."

The room surrendered to the proceeding calm, which lasted for a sacred moment. "Why the bloody hell would yeh give Johanna up so easily, yeh mindless git?!" Lovett stormed from the corner of the shop, daggers protruding from her eyes.

His shield of coldness spared any undesired wounds.

"Minutes ago, yeh were tellin' me of your complete love for 'er, and now yeh just stand there, senseless as a dead man, givin' her up as if yeh never 'ad met 'er to begin with."

"What is it to you?" he muttered. "You never even knew my daughter." His back turned to her, yet she swiveled to the side and braved his glare.

"On the contrary," hissing, she leaned forward, "I _did_. How else was I supposed to give yeh 'er message? Remember that, dear? The one where she pleaded for me to tell yeh 'ow she loved yeh with all 'er little heart could bear?" A storm of emotion swept across her eyes. "And for months, I looked after both your dyin' wife and your abandoned infant as if she were kin to me! The child that I lost—" As though she had said something forbidden, the woman's mouth snapped closed and her jaw locked in place. The enraged glower never faltered.

The words that had evaded from the baker were perplexing, but the barber displayed not even a hint of curiosity. "My daughter's gone, woman."

All hope seemed to have drained from Mrs. Lovett in a single huff, and she was a slave to her desire for the demon's affection once more. "Understood," she muttered.

"When Johanna was taken from me, she took my heart with her…" he whispered the rest, the sound chilling, "and my _sanity_." A flame of madness kindled his eyes. "And if that judge is to steal her away, then my heart will not be the only one ceased. He will know the terror Johanna has felt for so long, I will see it in his eyes as his neck is pressed against the edge of my blade."

"Whatever yeh say, Mr. Todd. Kill the Jude, murder your customers! Bake them into bloody meat pies for all I bleedin' care! You'll never—"her face widened, brow scrunched, lips drawn into a panicked frown; a rather unfitting expression for a woman of such brazen willpower.

For right there, in her very home, standing in front of the doomed city like a triumphant warrior upon the battlefront, Sweeney Todd had plastered a mad grin to his face and his eyes shone with fresh flame, the expression surely what Lucifer wore when butchering an angel to worthless flesh or claiming his rightful position as spectator of an innocent's slaughter. A new set of strings help him upright, he was no longer the victim, but the predator to all of humanity.

"Yet again, my pet," he purred, bringing the razor to the light, admiring his lunacy reflected in the fatal sliver's shine, "you have proven yourself resourceful."

**Turpin's Mansion**

Hope shined within Johanna Barker, a light that had gone obscured for far too long, as she rolled assorted clothing and placed them into her valise. The elation was almost a detriment from her work; she could not even begin to concentrate on what she had decided to pack for her flight from the mansion. What could she need once she had arrived to 186 Fleet Street, the very home her father swore to return to? How could she pack when her father's open arms were prolonged by only time itself? So many questions, too many cluttered thoughts to even ponder upon the answers.

She was going to find him. Tonight would be the night of her rebirth, their reunion.

A smiled dared its way to her lips and she remained there for a sparse moment. Then, the grin faded at a certain thought: An abandoned Anthony alone in the road, heart-broken due to her pitiless betrayal. He would be sad, he might even hate her, but the risk of another's scorn was trivial to her and her father's lives.

Possibilities, though, did manage to form in her mind, as she tossed a parasol into the spacious valise.

Perhaps, if Anthony had managed to follow her to Fleet Street, she could convince him to remain in the vicinity so she may have the comfort of seeing him again. As numb as her mind seemed to feel at times, she embraced her fondness for Anthony's affectionate manner, as unsettling as her guardian's brute approach. The boy had a kind heart, though; anyone with a soul could see such. A blinded bird could find comfort with his benevolence.

Her heart made the decision before her faceted mind could. She would tell Anthony of her father's whereabouts and pray that he would take her there without any ambiguity. Lying to him would have been too great a burden on both her and onto him, certainly after he had been her one chance at freedom to begin with.

Hands shaking in sudden excitement, her stomach twisting in knots, Johanna rolled a silken pelerine, the one with the black trim, and placed it above the parasol. Indifference seemed to be predominating; she had chosen her packed items with little to no discretion. Nothing but her eventual escape seemed to matter now.

What would her father think of Anthony? Would he like him? She hoped he would. After all, he was her liberator.

A frown drew to her face at another train of thought. Her father was a bit on the wary side and Anthony had planned on stealing her away from London in hopes of marriage. Surely if she explained herself, though, Anthony and her father would understand her reasoning. They both loved her...

Without thinking, she traced her travelling dress, fingers running over the bumps of the trailed, black buttons.

No matter how hard she tried, she could not bring her mind to believe that she just might see her father within a mere hour or two. Now that she thought of it, Anthony should be around the corner at that very moment!

Before she could approach the window and inspect the outside world for a sign of Anthony, the door to her room creaked open. Strange, she thought, that she had not heard the preceding footsteps that had lead to her door. Nonetheless, she heard the voice that ensued with unmistakable clarity.

"So it is true?"

The deep voice, the lingering rage that created an edge to every syllable uttered; it could have only been the Judge.

And in one single moment, all of her anticipation, her bliss, her dreams, had been snatched away, beaten, and buried. Her joys would forever stay obscured, left to bleed.

She did not bother turning to face him. Her crooked frown would only pleasure him. "It is customary for a gentleman to knock before entering the room of a lady," she said in a cool, brisk tone. "Or at least, your volumes on proper mannerisms preached such." When confidence granted her with a look of cold stone, an empty grimace, she challenged his eye with her own.

In comparison, Turpin's face held all of the accusation she could muster. But she felt no guilt, for that was the game. He would to what he could to make her feel the sting of remorse, and the moment she would open her heart to him, he would stab her with his lies, his insults, and merciless attacks. She could never win against the game; she had to refuse to entertain it altogether.

"I see no reason to knock upon the door of a common slut and bestow the gentility meant for ladies alone."

She swallowed a cry despite her rebellious stance. How long had it been—months, possibly—that she had been called a "Little Lady" by nearly every man in Botany Bay?

"For hours, I have forced myself to believe the sailor was lying to me, that my Johanna would never dare consider running from me a second time and carelessly obliterate the remnants of my broken heart."

She could have laughed at this, at the very thought of the demon before her possessing an actual heart. She did not though, and instead sought comfort in a mindless stroll around the room, to the shelves with delicate dolls perched on their wooden seats in silent cheer. When she had been younger, those dolls had been the friends she had never been able to speak with, the world she had not been permitted to see. She despised them now; they were far too happy.

Careless of her guardian's presence, she outlined the porcelain faces with her fingers and applied pressure to one's breast, the pottery collapsing beneath her finger, right where the doll's heart should have been.

Turpin's hand coiled around her arm after he advanced upon her and, with enough strength to bring her to her knees, he snarled, "You…you manipulative little wench!"

The fear made her heart drop like a stone, the pain of his hand snatching her hair in his fist beckoning a choked cry. Her knees screamed as they scraped against the wooden floor.

"Years I have waited, ensuring your happiness, mocking myself with the sight of you, and you repay me by running—not once, twice—from my home?" His words resounded, his face inches from hers. "How is it that you convinced the sailor to steal you away, hmmm? Did you make _love_ with him, my pathetic, little Johanna?"

She ignored the words, even as tears slipped from her eyes, and writhed in his grip with hands outstretched towards the door. Her struggles were in vain, and the Judge was not yet close to finished.

"That is it, is it not? You gave yourself to him, though I owned you then and now! Vermin such as that child," he snickered, "probably did not even bother to pay you, did he, my sweet?"

At that, he gripped her by both shoulders and slammed her prone to the floor. The air evaded her chest in a single huff. Her heart had risen at the action, and now, she swallowed to keep it down her throat.

The judge's hands slipped to her wrists and pinned them beside her head. Her fingers joined at the tips, giving him the opportunity to grasp both of her wrists with one hand and use the other to press against her cheek. The power of his hands was excruciating, and so, for the hundredth time since she had returned to the house of hell, she screamed.

As the screams of his ward bounced throughout the home, the judge gritted his teeth and busied his free hand with tearing at her petticoat.

"What—are—you—doing?" Johanna sobbed, words fragmented by the sudden, violent howls, the ones that racked through her feeble body.

The Judge listened to her cries with a twisted grin. Instead of hearing her weep without control in shame and disgust, he regarded the sound with a sadistic sort of pride. He had power, he could make her weak. He could take this strong-willed child beneath him and make her beg.

"What am I doing?" he growled in her ear. "Why, I am paying you, Johanna. All whores deserve proper payment."

At these words, she began the fight of her life. Her body struggled against his force, her stomach squirmed from side to side, her hands wriggled from the man's callous clutch, and her fingernails scraped the floor, in desperate prayer that she could grasp something to hoist herself from the defenseless position.

Aggravated at her burst of strength, he straddled her hips, pressing his torso against her shoulder blades. She coughed the remainder of air in her lungs, and when the man pressed his lips to the back of her thin neck, she begged.

He silenced her with the callused skin of his hand. The smell of his breath, moist and rancid, seeped through her nose and clouded her brain, like a thick fog after storms. The struggle to keep him away was then a struggle to keep her fully clad; terror turned her blood to ice, cold as the floor she was sprawled upon. His weight crushed the breath from her body and a wheezing cry crawled up her throat, already hoarse from unheard screams. Tears were needles to her eyes; he slapped her at the sight of them.

"Take it as it is," he whispered against her skin, "and accept it."

Her face was pushed into the floor once more. She smelled thick dust and her own fear as cold air stabbed at her vulnerable skin.

The man's teeth nipped at her throat, his fingers pressed into her memories, into her mind, into places her child's soul would never have imagined to be touched. Fire seared her insides, the pain forcing a yelp of anguish to her lips. He had long since abandoned holding her wrists, but she did not fight his advance any longer. Her hands, instead, had curled into fists, shaking with pressure.

Blackness crept into her vision, though she did not faint as she had done times prior. There was no merciful oblivion to save her now, the most horrendous of assaults the Judge had ever had on her. His hands were boulders to her body, his skin burned her.

As her head, jolting, lifted to send a despairing glance towards the door, she caught sight of the Beadle in the doorway of her room. Spectating the scene before him, Bamford's face began to distort with a grin and a grimace, as if the sight of little Johanna being ravaged on the floor conjured a battle of amusement and pity.

When his beady eyes caught her condemning glance, she averted the gaze to the floor and released another scream through clenched teeth, concluding in fresh sobs. She could not breathe, but in a way she did not want to. Breathing sustained life.

Turpin's lips were rubbery against her skin after he rolled her onto her back, his stubble left scratches on her flushed cheek as he kissed her, the contact leaving drops of moist perspiration.

He was the Devil himself, he was everywhere. Older than history, stronger than prison chains. God, this was what it was like to die.

She had not breathed in over a minute, either fear or hands or both smothering the very life out of her, like a dying candle's flame. Feeling another sharp burst of pain in her gut, coinciding with a bright explosion of red dots before her eyes, she covered her face with her fingers, her body crumpled in agony. The darkness was a mask.

Judge Turpin lifted himself off of the girl, his entire body eager to collapse in satisfaction. No longer did his nerves pierce him like pins, the pitiful heap before him held not even a trace of appeal.

Johanna managed to hoist her weight onto her palms and bring her knees upward so that she was crouched on all-fours, spewing distorted words through her short gasps. She sniffled quite a few times, no longer weeping, and wrapped both arms around her lower abdomen.

"Make yourself decent," the judge spat as he prodded the girl's disturbed petticoat with the tip of his boot. Snickering, he strode towards the Beadle and grinned at his right-hand man. Bamford had difficulty returning the cheer. His smile never did reach his eyes.

Hands trembling, she straightened her dress and grasped the foot of her bed with the sole intention of standing. Her lower half remained tender and she struggled for breath at the feel of it.

Something writhed in the Judge's eyes as he studied the girl's struggle, and he bent forward to grasp her by her shoulders, hauling her to her feet in a swift motion with no detectable effort as she whimpered at his touch. His hands fell away.

Legs crushed together, head bent; she continued her tiny panting, caught between vomiting and tears.

"Oh, my love, that was the fondest goodbye I should ever hope to receive. How I shall miss you," Turpin feigned concern, stroking her swollen, watery cheek, the concern long gone.

Johanna's eyes fluttered like a bird's wings before rising to her guardian's face. The action itself was an inquiry, but if she dared speak, she would have been sick.

"Yes, I must have forgotten to tell you!" he chuckled, the sound strained. "You will be placed in Fogg's mental asylum until your appreciation for your home has made itself known. And when it has, I swear to be a forgiving man as well as an ardent husband. For now, though, you must be punished for your insolence."

And then she was falling, unable to comprehend a sense of direction, helpless against the hatred that had taken her life and ruined it for a powerful man's pleasure. She was to be hospitalized for an illness that she did not being to doubt she acquired. For all she knew, she was as mad as her mother and was more than likely to share the woman's same fate. If the near future hadn't the power to kill her at that very moment, to strike her dead, then the oncoming thought did: she would _never_ see her father again.

Maybe that was why she could not bring her mind to believe that she would return to 186 Fleet Street that night—because she never would.

"Fath…er," she sputtered.

"Pardon me, my flower? I did not hear you."

"Father…my papa…"

The daunting sarcasm in the Judge had vanished then and there. He seized her chin in a resolute grasp, leaned forward, and said, "_Never_ call me _that_ again."

In one moment, Johanna's weakness had vanished and her bitter giggle, like a true mad woman's, provoked slight recoil from the judge. He released her chin and stepped backwards, brow scrunched in shock, mouth agape. The quiet laughter continued, darkness dimming in her eyes, raw power coursing with the ice of her blood. "You think that when I called for my father, I was calling for _you_? After all you have done to me, and you expect to receive unconditional _affection_ as if you somehow _deserve _it?!"

"Who were you calling for?" the judge rasped, listless.

Surprised by her own abruptness, she snapped, "When I called for my father, I was actually calling for my real,_ true_ father."

The judge scoffed at this, however unsettled as the response seemed to be. "What a stupid girl you are! Still you insist that your idiot father is somehow alive!"

"_Because he is alive_!!" Johanna shrieked, her strident voice carrying through the room. "How would I know this? I know because after I fled from you, after I was captured for stealing bread, after I was transported to Botany Bay, and after I was_ thrown_ into the _men's_ _barracks_ as a form of _punishment_, I met an agonized man who held a piece of my past and guarded me with the fiercest of protection! A real father! A true father! _My_ father!" At this point, she was in slight hysteria.

His body atremble, eyes orbs of white-hot horror, Judge Turpin's mouth twitched and below his voice he whispered, "No possible."

"It is, sir," she said in an eerie, calm tone. "When I was jailed in Australia, I met Benjamin Barker, a man convicted under false persecution, husband to a mad woman and father to an imprisoned daughter." She stepped forward and a wry smile, in contrast with tormented eyes, spread to her bloody lips. "Once your letter had been delivered and I was forced to leave his side, he whispered something to me; something that had stayed with me every single day I rotted away in your presence." She brought her voice to a whisper and repeated her father's distant words in a single breath. "_Hush, love, you know I will come home again." _

"He lied to you…there is not a chance…" Turpin exchanged a sickened glance with the Beadle, and their worry was both notable in their paled faces.

Johanna's voice overrode his. "My father will come home, and when he learns of where his daughter is, he'll slaughter anyone who stands in his way of getting to me. There's one thing you must understand about Benjamin Barker…" a tear, much to her dislike, ran past her bruising cheek, "He _always_ keeps his word."

**Though this chapter may have been disturbing beyond belief, though I may be flamed, though I may be called a writer without a heart, without a soul, keep these fun facts in mind: 1) Johanna is not real. 2) Judge Turpin is not real. And 3) I have never in my life—nor will I ever—attempt to force myself on anyone! (Steven King taught me that reply to criticism in his amazing book **_**On Writing**_**.)**

**I still humbly request your comments and thank all who have left them!**

**And if you have not seen the new Alice in Wonderland, then I recommend you do, all you Tim Burton fans. It was quite amazing as well as the Tim Burton exhibit. I swear I wanted to smash the case with Sweeney's razors and jack one as a mega souvenir.**

**And I do apologize for the wait…**


	36. Chapter 36

**Chapter 36**

**Turpin's Mansion**

For the first time in her entire life, Johanna stared upward towards her attacker and basked in the raw fear that poured from his gaze. It was she who had instilled it, it was she who held the advantage, now of all nights.

The power, though, could only last for the moment; for it was the fear that provoked the Judge's words. "Beadle, proceed with the plan."

With that, the strength, the brazen courage, all deserted the girl, leaving her to battle a frightened child's dread.

The Beadle hesitated for a moment, staring at Johanna as if he thought her father would appear out from under the bed and strangle him if he even approached the child.

"Beadle, do it this instant!"

The threat of an ominous judge seemed far more hazardous than the possibility of an ex-con appearing from thin air, and so, lurching forward, Bamford seized Johanna's forearms in his plump hands and avoided her wide-eyed horror.

"No, I cannot go to an asylum!" she cried as Turpin stationed himself in front of the door, pointing with a crooked finger in mock replication of a demented foot soldier.

"Get her out!"

Grunting from pressure, the man hauled a thrashing Johanna merely two feet before her fists began to pummel against his chest, winding his lungs, a burn in his gut. "My lord," the Beadle grumbled, "_assistance_?"

Nearly as afraid to touch the girl as the Beadle, and duly noted in his hesitance, Turpin groaned a sigh and gripped his ward's flailing wrists. Bamford coiled both arms around the girl's midsection and brought her feet into midair with ease, she had barely any weight to her, but the last burst of persevering adrenaline had yet to die.

They managed to cart her through the hall to the peak of the stairs, prepared to wrestle her winding arms and the battering blows of her feet as they descended. When they did so , their grips on the girl slackened, and she nearly tumbled down to the unforgiving floor in response. The Beadle had wrenched her upright by clutching chunks of golden hair, thus avoiding the risk of her falling, yet a pitiless gesture.

Her cries brought the majority of the house's staff to the main hallway--mainly the few maids that remained, now somber spectators to the girl's perturbing relocation. Every soul watched, yet not one offered Johanna assistance. They did not dare.

Shouting, sobbing, every movement restrained by strength that disgraced iron chains, her feet began to drag on the floor by the tips of her toes, and her body wobbled like elastic. "I'd rather die!! _Let _me die!"

The front door lay just before the group and the Judge released her arms to fling it open. The opportunity gifted her with a chance at swinging her fists, an addition to Bamford's aggravation, and a draining loss of her vigor--or at least the little she had left.

"If you wish for death, then seek it in the asylum. I wish to have nothing more to do with you..until you've learned," Turpin seethed, glare digging into the side of an awaiting coach beyond the mansion's steps.

The bitter London air hit the girl; the night was a blanket of shadows upon the paved streets. Her chest ached with each step taken towards it as she attempted to pry the Beadle's strangling hands from her stomach. Her fingers burned with effort, her arms soon collapsed and their failure tugged at her shoulders.

Turpin flung the carriage door open as the driver willed himself to gaze away from the sight of a young girl tossed aside, a plump Beadle soon to follow.

Johanna sunk deep into the coach's worn seating, capable of crying dry tears only, and her hoarse scream felt like nails scratching at her throat when her head was jerked forward to face the Judge.

"If this is to be the last I see you, then remember this: You, ungrateful baggage, have earned all I have in store for you! Every last bit of it!" Turpin appeared enraged, murderous even, but beneath it all, he seemed tired. "Blame yourself for this wretchedness, blame the sailor boy, and if what you have told me is indeed true, blame the man who could not shield you from _everything_ in this world." His tone shrunk. "Blame your _father_." He retreated from the coach, stating his last words in a clear tone, though cries built behind it, and he refused to look her way. "All men have earned the sentence of a hanging, Johanna, but only the mad receive it."

The coach door slammed, the sound of hooves upon stone bounced from London's confining walls, and distant shouting resounded from behind the carriage.

Johanna squirmed free of the Beadle's binding arms and pressed her face to the coach's window. Her eyes skimmed Anthony Hope's perusing form and twitched when tears began to sting. As the carriage's pace hastened, Anthony began to meld into the surrounding darkness, a member of the shadow's nightly vigil.

From it all, she could hear Anthony's faint shouts. "Where do you take her? Tell me or--"

"Kill me!" the Judge roared and the sound echoed to her ears, inside of her head. "Kill me if you dare!"

Anthony could not kill, she knew this, but a crevice in her sobbing heart prayed he did.

The sound of traveling hoofs and her futile weeps swallowed the remote voices of rage--rage that she never imagined hearing from a gentle soul such as Anthony. Perhaps her assessment on humankind in general was a bit skewed. Her father's perception seemed a tad more accurate.

She shook her head, placing her face into her palms.

_A mental asylum..._

"Is it true?" the Beadle questioned after minutes passed, the absence of human voices penetrating.

Johanna raised her head. A sheet of gloom dimmed her young eyes. "Is what true, sir?"

"What you had said...about your father..." The Beadle gulped, continued, "Did you truly meet him in...in Botany Bay?"

An unfitting, grief-stricken smile--though now a common expression--played with her lips. "Yes, Beadle, I did."

Nodding, perhaps in defeat or acceptance, the Beadle stuck his head towards the window, observing their location. He squinted at the coat of black that had draped over the town, the terrain that began to perplex him. "Driver," he called out into the night in his nasally tone, "where are we now?"

"Just coming up to Fleet Street, sir!"

Johanna's hand, on involuntary impulse, shot to her throat in silent imploration for the air that evaded her. Voices whispered into her ear and swam in the depths of her memories.

"F-F-Fleet Street?" Johanna whispered, broken. Her body crammed closer into the adjacent side of the coach and her face peered outside, eyes losing themselves to the enrapturing abyss of night. Street lamps swirled and encircled in vibrant patterns as the carriage continued on its way, the horses trotting with jolting strides , late night strollers observing the noble transport with inquisitive scowls.

The Beadle massaged his aching temples, oblivious to his captive's climaxing anticipation, the strange energy that sped through her blood. Her neck vibrated, her stomach lurched, and her fingers curled around the handle of the carriage door. Her heart smashed against her neck, almost to the point of seeing it's hurried pulse through her chest.

Johanna skimmed over the jagged memory of her father's home address, other thoughts beset. She spared the Beadle a final glance, detected his lack of attention, and returned her greedy stares to the door handle. Her actions were quick, swift with coordinated precision, and were quick to indicate belated misjudgment . For when she had jerked the door open, and she threw herself from the stagecoach at its breakneck speed, she had plummeted into the sharp, brutal, and uneven stone of London's street.

Her arm snapped back as soon as it smashed against the road with a jarring crack. Her teeth slammed together and pierced the inside of her cheek, drawing a sluggish ooze of blood that slipped down her throat. It was pain beyond deliberation, beyond reality, as if she fallen onto a naked rapier and its edge had sliced through her shoulder like butter, and burrowed deep within her chest. The excruciating battle raged between the ache of her lower body and the pitiless, indescribable _fire _she felt ripping at her arm. More pain than Turpin's hands, more shock than that delivered at the end of another's fists, more fear in her clogged head than ever before.

The Beadle's shouts were heard for a meek second, and then drowned in deplorable comparison to her own.

With her unscathed arm and rubbery legs, Johanna heaved herself forward and began to crawl.

She had yet to stop screaming.

**186 Fleet Street**

Sweeney Todd ignored Mrs. Lovett's chatter, quite preoccupied with the pedal to the floor's trapdoor to even entertain a word. Years of constructing houses and barracks, hauling fallen timber and carts filled with heaps of dead, and a simple barber's chair proved to be the most challenging Yet, the plan was quite ingenious, he allowed himself a moment of self glory. First, he would kill the customer selected, stomp on the pedal, the chair would tilt in mechanical response, and the trapdoor would drop to an open. The dead man would be swallowed by the hole in the floor after dumped backwards, head first, and the bake house floor would greet his bear head in eager welcome. There was still conflict over what to do with the deceased, seeing Mrs. Lovett had to argue over the matter, but Mr. Todd was carefully formulating a way to lure the baker into cooperating. And once she had agreed, his mastermind plans would be brought to an artful finale.

"Mr. T, what you're doin' to me Albert's chair is more of a crime than the one yeh were convicted of!" Mrs. Lovett exclaimed from across the room.

Sweeney's head shot up. "That's because I didn't commit a crime," he said.

Lovett furrowed her brow and a frown limped to her mouth. "Then you're makin' up for lost time!" she countered.

He spat a sigh. "Go make some pies, woman. I'm busy..."

"Pies? You're planning on massacring the whole bleedin' city and I'm supposed to bake _pies_?"

"To bring the people in...Good pies means good business..." he returned his hands to work, "More customer will come to me..."

"Thank yeh, love, there ain't nothin' like good economic tutoring from an ex-convict," she said in dry opposition.

In a fit of anger, he threw an empty box, which held a dozen rusted nails, to the ground. The wood splintered, the sound like the crack of lightening, and he stepped towards the baker, a fuming provocation.

In spite of the air's rising tensions, Mrs. Lovett chuckled. Her voice was strained, but soon, coated with false sociability. "Yeh know that I support yeh, dear, in everything yeh do. Sure, London is a bit on the offensive side..."

"And I will kill them all for what they've done to my family," he whispered, more so talking to himself than the woman. He lifted his head after a moment of deathly silence, now speaking directly to his partner. "And this was _your_ idea, by the way."

"Mr. T..." her voice trailed off, then continued with an exertion of volume, "I was bein' a bit sarcastic when I told yeh to bake murdered clients into me pies...bad, _bad_ joke on my part."

His eyes were knives to her own. "Like I said, _your_ idea. _You_ take part."

"Yeh can't be bleedin' serious," she moaned, and for the first time in all of her years, cursed her satirical wit.

There was a dragging calm as the demon gazed at her, assessing the woman to find a fatal flaw. It took him less than a flying second, and before the baker could recoil, Mr. Todd had stood, strong and tall, and glided to her side. "But, my love," he said, a caressing whisper sliding ice down the woman's back, "I can't hope to do any of this without you...it's much like a man navigating the sea without his map. It's not very possible, is it now?"

"I suppose not, Mr. T," she folded her arms in front of her breast, as if to barricade his possessive charm, "but then again, yeh managed to."

His chuckle was raspy and forced, much like he did so just to kindle stale warmth. "Touché, pet."

Both clung to stability, to stubborn will-power as they glared at their foe.

"It'll surely boost your business...a grand reopening...," he coaxed, returning to his strategizing mind, "And as soon as we have proper income and the Judge is ash in the bottom of your oven, we'll bring back the regular meat."

Shaking her head, the woman's grasp on her fortitude slipping to a dangerous edge, she muttered, "I can't carry the bodies by myself, Mr. Todd...," her eyes gathered into a stormy glower, "and Lord knows Toby ain't gettin' involved in_ any_ of this."

The man smirked, satisfied with her weak attack, and indicated the discarded pieces of the barber chair. "The chair will deliver them straight into the bake house. I've arranged it that way...We both will get to work after it's completed." _After she let him finish!_

"I still haven't said _yes_, Todd," she muttered.

"Oh, but Mrs. Lovett," inching even closer, he slipped a hand on the flat of her back, "your help would please me so very much...You want to please me, don't you?" He tried at a genuine smile, but his eyes danced with flames, a fiery fragment of Hell itself.

She could have worshipped those eyes days on end.

"Course, love," she said. Her back arched against his palm, "I aim to please."

The smile flew to his eyes, his lips drew into a smirk. The hand snatched away from her body as if burned by her skin. "Good," was all he said, and he turned to his incomplete project with that same icy grit that seemed to coexist forever in contrast with the heat of his rage.

The apathy was a perfect motive for the baker's opposition, and she continued with animosity. "We may 'ave future plans made, but not once 'ave yeh mentioned wot is to become of Johanna. After all, yeh are 'er parent, and even though you've discarded her like that heap of nails, I'm sure she wouldn't be 'appy to know 'er papa is a murderous--"

The woman cut off her words, not out of fear or because of the barber's brute reaction, but because of her, dare it be said, pity. There sat her opponent, gazing up with the lost look of mourning, the mist of tears that soon inundated his eyes, the bitter droop of his spine, and the parental urge he had just begun to bury, battling for a chance at thriving once again. It was an unfair attack, his one weakness that held the power to end his very life used against him in a matter of such spite. It was a battle in which both Lovett and himself were his opponent.

"No, not Johanna... I'd die before _discarding_ her," his breath began to tremor, "H-how could you _say _such?" The question was not directed towards Lovett, but even so, it was a question nonetheless, and such was directed towards himself. He weighed her words, and felt a partial truth blossoming into something _bigger_. A full-blown, crushing, _accusation_.

"Oh, love. I shouldn't have--"

You're right!" he roared, back on his feet, glaring at her with all the blame she could undergo. "You shouldn't have!!"

A man gazed at a woman, his fierce glower enough to kill, and a woman dared to meet his eyes, ashamed of her harsh words though she had been greeted with similar malice her entire life. A woman and a man, alone in a room filled to the brim with tension. And not one of them spoke.

And then, a distant scream from the outside world swept through the shop, London's reminder of the reality that neither could evade.

At first, both Sweeney and Lovett did not pay the faint cry any heed. It was London, crime at night was like clouds in her daily skies, filth in her weary trodden streets.

There was another cry, and this time, it snagged the attention of both barber and baker, though Mrs. Lovett was held captive to the sound. Todd brushed it off.

The scream was closer than first regarded, the shrieks of a young girl in obvious distress, but the agony she must have been undergoing was just _inconceivable_. The girl sounded as if she were being bludgeoned to death, as if she were having her limbs slowly ripped from her body, as if she were succumbing to a violent, atrocious, and unbearable end.

Sweeney Todd had heard those sounds every day of his life, if not in reality, then in his mind, in the visions that prodded and ridiculed, never once leaving him with a minute's peace. The images of men, eaten raw as they slept, young boys sobbing as they were forced into an older con's bunk, gunshots and the metallic puncturing of skin...The day was unnatural if he _did not_ relive it.

Just to feed curiosity's hunger, Mrs. Lovett maneuvered her way around strewn chair parts to the window and gaped outside. What she saw widened her eyes, stole her breath, iced her arms, her legs, her face so that the expression of unnerving shock remained carved into her pale features.

Sweeney Todd looked over towards Eleanor in questioning. "Mrs. Lovett?"

She did not answer. Her eyes had trained into space, to a certain area in the street.

A girl, as the screams had indicated, was sprawled on the street to the far right. Lovett had to crane her neck to catch a better view of the child in distress, and yet, she almost cursed the vivid visibility. There, with her arm tucked beneath her stomach and blood dripping down her chin in the streetlamp's orange glow, was a tiny, blonde child, clawing at the floor if only to move an inch more down the road.

Nellie's natural instinct had already alerted her to the situation, she would not have come to investigate the scene otherwise. However, a different urge sent a course of realization through her body and her feet flying across the shop, leaving Todd alone and baffled.

The child, damned if it was not, held too much similarity to the barber's daughter for the woman to cast aside.

And so, an alarmed, suspicious baker on the chase, Eleanor Lovett tore through the door and down the stairs, scurrying through the brisk night to the child's side.

"Johanna?" the woman stammered, her voice crumpled and collapsed. She could whisper, but she could not speak. "Lord, Johanna, is that yeh?"

The girl, spewing breath from the effort, lifted her head towards the baker. The street's light reflected in her bleeding arm and in her watery eyes, half closed from the labor of such pain. Her mouth was ajar, one arm twisted at the joint and held to her breast as blood smeared her ivory skin.

None other, much to the woman's horror, than Johanna Barker.

"Please," the child gasped through her teeth, sticky blood stretching on her lips as she spoke, "don't let him get to me." The girl's injured arm reached towards Mrs. Lovett and shook with violent pressure until collapsing to the stone street. Johanna screeched from the impact and the woman knelt, or rather crumpled, to her knees. "Where's father?" The whimper, with quiet words pressed against stone floor, stabbed at Lovett's heart.

"He's home, dearie," Lovett said. She drew the girl's head in her lap, stroked her crimson coated locks, and shot a frantic glance towards the shop's illuminated window a few yards down.

As the woman assessed Johanna's injuries with solemn eyes, her stares brushed over the blood that seeped through the lower half of the girl's dress and began to dry, as if she had acquired an injury in that exact spot an hour or so prior...

Through with waiting for the insufferable woman to return, the barber stalked over to the window and tore at the night with his eyes in search of what had caught her attention. It did not take him long to find it; his keen eye caught sight in a fleeting instant. A child was crumpled on the street, yellow hair in disarray, and the baker clutched her close, speaking words that the window did not permit him to hear. A meager crowd of late night strollers began to gather around the scene.

A bond tugged on his body, a bond he had not felt in what seemed to be years. It awakened him, brought life to his mind. It was the very bond that connected him to his child when she first came to him and nearly destroyed him when she had been taken.

_Johanna..._

HIs heart dropped, and electrifying trepidation pervaded the man's body. If his eyes had not betrayed him and that was _his _Johanna, sprawled on the ground...God, could he dare let himself believe?

He was hesitant, doubtful of his senses, almost reluctant to trust them, but all the uncertainties seemed to recoil when he caught sight of the Beadle, stomping over the area, pudgy face wrinkled in fury. Now he knew the truth: the agonized child, the battered cherub in the streets, was indeed his daughter. His old heart soared, joy granting it wings... And then, the choking fear returned, for his eyes once again caught hold of the advancing Beadle. He had mere _seconds_ to get to Johanna before Bamford did.

Mr. Todd's legs were quicker than his thoughts. A year had been lived in a second, and he had already ripped through the shop's door, scrambled down the creaking steps, and dashed towards his daughter, all pain in his legs gone, his thoughts nearly as tangled as his heart's sloppy pulse. The liveliness of fatherhood, alive and flourishing in his heart, the urge to shield his only child from all who meant her harm, it had all returned. He had not felt this vigorous, this refreshed, in almost a year.

_Johanna..._

He had reached the spot, almost sent a pair of spectators to the floor after crashing into their sides, and stood aloof as he stared towards the ground, seeking the girl's gaze. His eyes met her own and the two stared at the other, the girl's cries frozen, the father now a slave to immobility.

They simply stared at each other, relishing the bond and how it grew taut as their eyes danced together in jovial reunion. He was alive and she was alive.

Life had regained a purpose.

Glittering joy shimmered in the young girl's matured eyes, her smile brought brief light to the street, and she struggled to a sitting position with the baker's assistance. There was blood on her arms, but not a trace of pain was reflected in her perfect, young face. Tears slipped down her cheeks, tears that ripped the barber's heart to bloody tatters.

Johanna, his daughter, his child, his sweet, stolen heaven. So close, so _alive_.

It was all too surreal. He must have died and been offered the heaven he could never receive.

"Papa!" she exclaimed, but her words were lost to the buzz of conversation around them. Her thin arms stretched towards him.

When his stupor had been broken, and any misgivings with it at the beautiful chime of her words, he brought his hands forward, prepared to hold his daughter, his reason for life itself. There was an elation in his heart, he had long forgotten the presence of the living world.

Sweeney's feet had not even left the ground when Beadle Bamford appeared and wrenched the child upward by her dainty shoulders, away from her father's opened hands and the baker's tender grasp. Such barbaric force, and the child had not shattered before his eyes.

With this, Todd's heart leapt in fear and he stared at his daughter, begging God, the world, London,_ anything _capable of hearing his forlorn pleas, that his daughter not be taken from him again. Not again, a second blow like that would surely kill him.

As the Beadle's arms wrapped around her, her face was cloaked with terror and she began to scream, to tear at his hands, to grope the air for her father. The father that lay just before her, yet so out of reach. "_No! NO! Don't take me from him!_"

"For the love of God, Beadle," a man exclaimed, pushing his way to Sweeney Todd's side. "Help the child! She is obviously injured." From the corner of his eye, Sweeney recognized the speaker to be the wealthy man from the market. The man who had first inquired about his shop on Fleet Street with his freshly shaven beard and flawless pronunciation. Though the man struck Todd as familiar, an encounter before the market that he could not recall, his stare remained fixated on the struggling Johanna.

Bamford's eyes ensued in a panicked chase from one person's eyes to the next. After jolting the girl to his side, one arm still wrapped around her waist, he shrugged off his coat and threw it over her head, blinding her vision and obscuring her face from sight. One arm still sleeved, he pressed his palm to the top of the hooded head, declaring to the crowd, "She's mad! Back away, the child is mad!"

"No," the barber gasped, clutching at the empty air, " She's not mad...she's not..." And then Todd was plummeting through cold reality, through the horrors that both he and his child had been thrust into, and now the current nightmare that stood before him, like a living monster he could not slay. He could not have Johanna back, she was being stolen from him for the second time in his wretched life. He could not kill the Beadle, there were too many witnesses. He could not snatch her away from the man, he held her as if onto sanity itself. There was nothing he could do, yet that had always been his life. Helplessness.

Mrs. Lovett whirled to face him, clutched his jacket. "We 'ave to do somethin'," she demanded, frenzied, with a pleading look to her unsettled eyes.

Johanna's muffled shriek and the shouts of a few citizen's were a hazardous addition to the brimming disorder. Many had begun to question the veiled girl's identity.

The strange, familiar man by their side bellowed, "That child is not mad, sir, and I'll be damned to Hell if I am incorrect!"

Grunting, his eyes ablaze with fresh lunacy, the Beadle snapped the girl's arm back and roared over her wails of pain, "Then so be it, man! Burn, burn as if the entire city were on fire! But step back, Goddamn you all, or each one of you will hang by your necks from the gallows!"

The crowd fell to a death-like silence, and since the majority of the insignificant mass were of lower class, they fled from the Beadle, and in doing so, from any threat of impending punishment.

The wealthy man, with his jaw clenched, sent Sweeney and the cloaked girl a crushed glance, turned on his boot heel, and departed from the scene at the very mention of the law.

"The same goes for you, barber," Bamford spat as he jutted his chin towards the scattering crowd. "Leave."

Mr. Todd's face was solid, showing no indication of hearing a word from Bamford."She's in pain," he whimpered.

Just as the Beadle parted his plump lips to reprimand Todd with thrice the authority, a cry from the end of the street lashed at the night's biting air.

"Johanna!! Johanna!!" Even in his impaired state, Sweeney could distinguish Anthony's voice anywhere. It drew close each passing second, but Todd did not turn to investigate, nor did he speak to the baker, or shift his weight or blink or breathe. A cutting breeze beat against his torso.

Dread churned in Beadle Bamford's gaze and, without another moment wasted on hesitance, he hauled Johanna along in the opposite direction with a hand coiled on the nape of her neck. Her wobbling legs could barely keep the pace and they gave way constantly . Their carriage could be discerned from the dimness of the streets, both doors thrown open like a vulture's wings. The driver was reclining on the back of the buggy, pouting in impatience, his face masked by shadows. When Bamford was close enough, the driver trudged forward and took part in heaving the child into the carriage.

"No! Leave her be!" Anthony shouted past the remnants of the crowd, and at the time, all who remained was the fretting baker and the motionless barber, the barber whose hands had collapsed to his sides, waiting for the world to come back to him piece by piece.

It never did.

Sweeney grasped a fistful of the boy's shirt before he could take another hurried step and hauled him backwards. Struggling, the seams of his shirt tearing, Anthony cried, "I have to get to her, let me go!" His young voice cracked and fell as if her were about to collapse into sobs.

The barber remained resilient. He whirled to boy to face him, clutched his narrow shoulders, and silenced the diminutive cries with his deep, commanding tone. "The girl!" he demanded, and Anthony could even sense the cracking panic within Mr. Todd's words, "Where are they taking the girl?"

Anthony gave a limp thrust of his arm towards the carriage at the end of the way. "I do not know, Mr. Todd!" He pressed his forefinger to his eye sockets, wiping at the tears ."God, they'll lock her away forever!"

The barber's head spun to the carriage, to the boy, back to the carriage. Each glance directed towards the end of Fleet Street delivered a terrorized frown, a worried, scrunched brow, a set of widened eyes that reflected nothing short of pure instinct. So wild, so controlling, so alive. A faint push stirred his soul again, and that push--be it from the hands of guiding providence or ill-fated doom---was what sent his body into a surge of motion, and the dark world passed him as a vague blur while he dashed onward, the sailor and baker long forgotten within his wake.

The carriage shifted forward and then pounced to life at growing speed.

Todd's legs collided into his chest when he brought then upward, his hands pierced the hissing air; he ran with greater agility that his escape through the South African mountains, the labyrinth of terrain littered with spiky debris that cut his feet into pulpy, scarlet ribbons.

The carriage did have a greater lead, but the distance between it and the man was sparse, closing in with each sprinted lunge. He would wrench the coach door open once he had reached it, dispose of both the driver and Beadle, and cram his little daughter to his chest. He would demand everything from her; demand that she fill his heart with the humanity he had lost, the joys only a true father could relish, everything and anything she could manage to give him. The bastards had taken half of his living soul from him, and he would ride through Hell to reclaim it.

Hell was London's streets.

The carriage rounded a corner, he followed it. Never did his steps falter, though his lungs dropped to the floor, his chest compressed, the wind brought moisture to his black eyes. Never a pause, never a break in his pace, that is, until he saw the minor group of constables idly standing and peering at the peculiar scene. Scowls were imprinted on their moon-white cheeks.

There was a momentary hesitation in the barber's pace, but he was blind to any dangers, blinded by the paternal extinct--which he felt would be his very demise-that had gone masked, but never disposed of. Here it was, thriving in his chest. _A group of policeman_, he thought, _could not do shit_ _to stop him_.

Anthony Hope, on the other hand, managed to.

There was a tug on his forearm, a desperate pull on his shoulder, and the world around him shifted position. After reevaluating his surroundings, Mr. Todd realized the sailor had bested him in the chase and threw his knees to the ground after clutching onto the barber's arm, with hopes that gravity would be of greater assistance than his contrasting--in a word: weak--strength.

"Mr. Todd, please," the boy said, gaze shifting to the aloof officers, "they're constables! You will be apprehended if you take another step!"

Todd hissed something foul beneath his breath and shifted to slip from the boy's grip in an inconspicuous fashion.

"Leave Johanna to me, sir...I'll find her."

Todd retorted in a shout, caution rejected. "No! She isn't _yours_ to find!"

"Is there a problem, sirs?" an officer ventured as he stepped from the curb to the street. In his hand, the tip of his nightstick began to protrude from beneath the heavy, black coat.

"Course not, Gents," Mrs. Lovett huffed to the officers after dragging herself beside the two. She paused for a few more gasping breaths and swallowed several times to slow her smothering heartbeat--she had never been enthusiastic toward running. "In fact, they're goin' home this very minute." In silent warning, she grasped Mr. Todd's unoccupied sleeve and began to drag the man from the spot after bidding the constables a good night.

A brief stillness bound the barber, and then, the inner demons waged a war of complete hellfire. "I'll kill you both; get off! I don't give a shit who sees me slit your bloody throats!"

"Pardon me?" the same officer demanded as his mates' attention drew to the scene.

"He's downed a bit too many," Anthony lied this time, and Mrs. Lovett nodded in agreement, if only to stomp surreptitiously on Todd's foot with her heel. He took no head and continued to rage on, though he kept himself as composed as any drunkard would while in the presence of the foreboding law; a noble effort.

They had made it at least a few yards before the officers were out of hearing range, and Sweeney Todd's restraint had failed, and his tyrannous approach clashed with Mrs. Lovett's.

"_You_, and that _boy_, and those Goddamned _officers_!" he roared, too lost in his anger to speak accordingly.

"Mr. Todd, you're goin' home, now!" she replied with clear articulation of her words to simply irk him.

He tossed her aside and pointed his unsheathed razor, which he had gripping in midflight, towards her face. His breath was ragged against her clammy skin and she drifted into the silence for a mere second until she was lost in it, like a child caught in the rip current.

"You don't know anything, dammit! You don't know what it feels like to have a child taken from you!" His words pinched off and he ripped both their hands from his arms, the anger ridding him of emotion. "Peel your heart from your chest and perhaps you'll gain a faint idea!"

"She's gone, Mr. T," the woman whispered and pointed to the end of the street. Her action was near dead and her eyes mocked the gesture. "The buggy road out o' sight a few minutes ago. Yeh didn't see it...and yeh kept at running..."

The fire was not purged, yet it dimmed in his eyes. She could see his soul reflected in his face--how young he would have been had it not been for Botany Bay--and the flicker of life writhed in his dying stares. It was like watching a living human die away. "No, not my daughter," he denied in a breathy, empty tone, "the coach is close by...I'll get her back now."

"Mr. Todd, the lady is right. Johanna is long gone," Anthony attempted to soothe, but his words fell pungent, devoid of sentiment. "I'll look for her, sir, do not worry." He began to lead the way, a good foot ahead of the pair. "Come, you must return home."

A strange emptiness swallowed the man whole at that instant; his body plunged to the depths of numbness. He did not decline, he did not agree, he walked with the sailor and baker, weary of his unsettling surrender, and spoke not a word until they turned back onto Fleet Street.

"There yeh are, love, back home." Mrs. Lovett's words, though meant for endearing purpose, jabbed at every part of Todd's hollow body. The very words she had spoke, now the words he could only dream he would someday say to his child. Home. A place of gentle warmth, undying affection, cheery laughter, now a prison, cold desolated, and barren to even the slightest comfort. There was an absence of youthful essence in this prison, an absence of wholeness , of a slender hand clutched in his.

Johanna was lost, gone, and he had been stupid enough to allow himself a glimmer of hope after swearing he would maintain a distance from even the _thought_ of his daughter. He was a traitor and she was gone. He was a wretched liar...and she was_ gone_...Never to be seen, never to be found, broken, bloody, left for dead.

And he was falling.

Stone kissed his knees and they bled in acrimonious return. Filth seeped through his trousers, the coldness of it caked onto his skin, a thick coating he would never cleanse himself of.

Raw, inhuman cries burst free from his body, his barred cage, and he howled towards the blackened ash of London sky, a soulful lament for the damned.

Anthony Hope sent a worried glance towards the mourning barber and fled past them, opening his mind to navigate the streets and receiving darkness in return.

Mrs. Lovett's eyes fell from her barber, she entered her tiny meat shop, and left him alone to drown in his grief, brought to his knees on the grimy, forsaken road, forcing his clenched fists to his eyes, keening over like a dying animal.

**I do apologize for the wait and I hope the length of this chapter compensates for it. Please review and thank you all!**


	37. Chapter 37

**Chapter 37**

**Fogg's Asylum**

Once the carriage had limped to the stone steps of the asylum entrance, the Beadle shifted, glanced towards the captive Johanna--who was slowly slipping into unconsciousness from loss of blood, pain, and draining bereavement--and stumbled from the coach.

"Watch the girl," he called over his shoulder to the driver, "and restrain her if she attempts escape again."

"After the blows yeh 'anded her, I doubt she'll budge an inch," the man grumbled, swathing spit between his teeth.

Brow raised, Bamford swiveled on his hip to spite the hired driver with a sneer of superiority. How could anyone _not _be disgruntled when the girl had thrown herself from a moving carriage, most likely broken her arm, and screamed bloody murder until inquisitive Londoners swarmed the scene? Did the bastard have any idea what kind of trouble the little siren would have stirred if they had recognized her identity? And what of that foolish barber, staring at the girl like she were a precious, coveted fragment of heaven itself?

Echoed screams first greeted the Beadle when a hollow-faced male answered the asylum's door. He wore a sullied, white coat, sprinkled with crimson splatters at the rim, and a haggard expression as he slid a hand atop the door panel.

"Can I help yeh , sir?"

Another scream within the darkness of the building, that trilled and died with an abrupt groan.

"I require a meeting with a Mr. Fogg, the keeper of this establishment, I presume, on behalf of the honorable Judge Turpin." His posh tone could only crack when, at the far end of a hall, a woman was dragged by her scalp as her lower body trailed the ground. She had no arms, and vomited blood that smeared her limp legs, leaving a scarlet trail as a mark of her path. White bone glistened from the stumps of her shoulders.

The worn keeper turned his grey face to the scene, sought the source of the Beadle's discomfort, and returned his gaze forward. There was a spark in his eye, and it appeared to be...humor."Ah, yes," he replied as a wiry smile creased his mouth, "the Judge came by but a few hours ago...said 'e 'ad a lovely bird for us to cage. A mad one at that..."

The Beadle cleared his throat. "Yes," he said and brought his knuckles to his lips as he gave a light cough. An odor of filth-laden bodies and rotting corpses began to seep outside, a smell that summoned a memory of Newgate's gallows where the freshly dead were left to hang for weeks until their eyes, noses, and lips had weathered away. "I do wish to confront him first, however."

"Of course, " the man said in the same odd, empty voice. He made no effort to move from the spot, but eventually budged when the Beadle tried at an awkward side-step around him.

When the two entered Fogg's asylum, the stench became thick and the air, dank. The keeper, who seemed accustomed to such an environment, paced past cluttered cells, footsteps wandering through the lost strands of air. "If you'll follow me, sir."

Beadle Bamford made sure to avoid peering into the cells to his right, contaminated with patients devoid of hair or other body parts or simply their minds, and pursued the man until he paused beside a small door, the wood moldy and rotting away, insects leaving weathered holes on its surface. Without knocking, the keeper pushed his way in and beckoned for the Beadle to enter.

Mr. Fogg was seated at a desk in similar condition to his office door, twiddling a quill pen between his hands and smearing ink onto his bony fingers. The room was darker than his asylum's halls, in bleak comparison, a lone candle as its source of scarce light. There were no books, no windows, merely a desk and a chair, a single fireplace where amber coals glowed after being previously stoked. All shadowed by the flicker of the candle's insignificant flame.

The grim doctor's black-rimmed eyes rose to Bamford, shot to the keeper, and returned to the desk. There was a slumbering hesitation. "If you wish to see a showing , sir, you will have to wait till the morn. I must replace the children who dropped dead during the last performance."

Mouth dry, Bamford rasped, "I'm not here for a show, Mr. Fogg. I am here to deliver a patient."

Fogg kept his gaze trained on the black ink smearing his thumb, as if nothing struck him odd any longer. "Another child for me to tend to," he sighed, then a greedy glare dashed toward his visitor. "Is it another freak I can display? I prefer deformities, facial deformities, that is. The people do love that. But if the child is simply mad, I can always put it in a cage for showcase."

"No, sir, the girl is not a freak...but she is mad, nonetheless, and should be placed here to maintain the peace of society until cured."

"We do not _cure_ our children here, sir. This is an asylum for the mentally deranged, not a hospital."

Unable to respond, the portly man nodded his head, staring at a roach limping to the heel of his boot.

"Well," Fogg broke the silence and gestured to the empty space around the Beadle, "where _is_ she?"

Brought back to reality, and aggravated at the very least at his own stupor, Bamford huffed, "The girl's in the carriage outside of this establishment...but during her struggle, she slipped and bloodied her arm. Be warned, this one's a spitfire. "

"Spitfire...only the dead in fresh graves utter the word. A bird's wings are easily clipped, gentleman, and their eyes put out so they flutter to their deaths...bring the birdie in. Let me examine her."

The words tightened around the Beadle's mind, choking out other thoughts, and just when he thought the bemusement could not get any worse, he broke his _own_ discomfited silence. "I will require your help retrieving her from the carriage, though. You see," Bamford paused, " the girl is not all there."

Mr. Fogg grinned and bared his yellow, gapped teeth. "Ah, good sir, none of us are _all there_."

The Beadle almost regretted asking for Fogg's assistance as they paced through the dim hallways, as Fogg rattled on barred cages of his children and squealed in delight at their coarse howls.

The keeper shouted over a woman's wailing, whom the Beadle realized was discarded in a cage to the side of the hall, "What was your name, sir?"

"You may refer to me as Beadle Bamford, Mr. Fogg..." A man's thin hand shot from the darkness of an adjacent passage and clawed at the Beadle's coat. As if singed by the fingers of Satan, Bamford yelped and jumped back, hands held high to ward off assault. A pair of tight-lipped nurses wrestled the patient away from his prey, down the hall, to an iron door where the clinking of chains rattled through the watery air.

Shaken, his pace doubled into a desperate race for the exit, the Beadle jogged to the asylum doors and gasped for air upon thrusting them open. The usual, polluted London night was an oasis compared to the fowl stench of death just behind him.

After a few more shrieks and echoing laughter, Fogg emerged from the building's darkness and observed the outside world. He searched the streets and buildings, and a cloud shadowed his face, a twisted sense of longing that could never be indulged. "That's your buggy, sir?" he croaked and directed a hand towards the carriage beyond the asylum's steps.

"Yes," the Beadle whispered, the breath of his words shaken. He descended the steps with his upper body turned slightly to the side in order to keep Fogg in plain sight. "Keep in mind, she's--"

"Deranged? Yes, sir, I'll keep that in mind."

The Beadle's jaw locked as he came to the carriage door.

The driver, leaning on its side, gave his employer a lazy nod. "Hasn't stirred an inch, sir, like I said."

Without responding, Bamford twisted the door's knob and opened the door, revealing a slumped back Johanna, head askew and her cheek pressed to her shoulder. She pried her eyes open and drew a sharp breath as the Beadle stepped aside, allowing the ominous Mr. Fogg room to step forward.

"Hello, silly birdie," Fogg cooed, wasting no time in bringing his fingers to her face, stroking her as a twitch tugged at his thin brow. "What have we here?" he asked when his eyes fell to the bloodied flesh of her arm.

Johanna emitted a choked cry from the back of her throat when the asylum keeper took her elbow in his palm and rubbed his fingers over the oozing gash. Then, with a bemused grin, he took his finger, covered in the girl's blood, and poked it into his mouth. "You're a tasty one." Still smiling, he slipped his arms behind her back and beneath her legs, lifting her from the seating, murmuring, "Come, sir, I do need your assistance with the diagnosis. I should think it foolish to house a child without proper analysis."

The Beadle's eyes flicked to the stone building, looming in the darkness, its walls aglow beneath the moon's rays. How it stood, bending and swaying with the weight of its inhabitants, how the screams of the insane seeped from the windows and into the dead night. _How the _hell_ did the man expect him to go back in there?!_

Stirring in the stranger's arms, Johanna gave a vain push at Fogg's chest, murmured for her father, and submerged into momentary unconsciousness.

"Little birdie," Fogg began, ascending to the asylum's bulky doors with a meek Beadle trailing behind, like a dog with his tail between his quivering legs, "hardly weighs anything."

As if Bedlam were some sadistic form of Hell, screams, moans, cries, and begs greeted the group as they stepped through the doorway into the faint, candle-lit halls. Watery filth squeaked beneath the Beatle's boots, he cast a caged child a meager smirk, clinging to the strands of his impudent supremacy rather than submitting to his childish dread.

"Now, Beadle Bamford," Fogg said in his conversational tone, oblivious--or accustomed--to the horrors around him, "would you say the child has any feminine impulses to be thin? It would seem that she's rather tiny..."

"Yes, Mr. Fogg, very unnatural for a girl her age, might I add."

The man gave a deep nod of his head, in both recognition to the Beadle's words and in greeting to one of his dreary staff members as they carted a bucket of murky blood down the way.

"Of course. Then you agree with me, sir, if I were to diagnose the child with Anorexia--the desire to be thin beyond healthy means?" With the heel of his dripping shoe, Fogg nudged his office door open, and observed the area for a place to deposit the girl.

"Well, you are the doctor," Bamford snorted, his humor now terror at the sight of a mat cast aside on the floor, a hemorrhaging corpse sprawled on its surface, and a bloodstained nurse peering down at it while wiping the gory crimson onto her apron.

"Oh, now, what is this?" Fogg sighed, stopping before the mess to observe.

"Freshly dead, Mr. Fogg. The morgue was otherwise filled, as was the stockroom, so I brought the body here for your good judgment. " She gave her employer a queer sort of stare, much like a child expecting a treat when they knew they did not truly deserve it.

"Ah, yes," he said, jolting as Johanna fidgeted for release, "put the poor child with the 'wayward' women. God save the mark!"

A corner on the woman's lip tugged upward and, hauling the body from the stiff edge of the mat, she dragged the corpse from the room, displaying surprising strength for a women. One would think after years of maintaining malicious and violent patients, a nurse would have the strength of any grown male.

"Wayward women?" Bamford inquired when the room had been cleared of all intruders.

"Pregnant...usually prostitutes infected with consumption..." Fogg replied, his voice absent minded as he stepped forward and set the wriggling Johanna into his wooden, rickety chair. "Now, child," the man instructed with a grab at her wrist, "I wouldn't suggest you do anything rash...I will have to restrain you and we don't want that, now do we?"

Tears pooled in the girl's eyes and she glanced at the Beadle, accusation in her face, pleas written in her eyes. The Beadle turned away, dodging her eyes and evading any guilt. _She deserves it_, his mind whispered, but the reverberation of the "children's" howls drove out his reassurances.

"Now, Beadle, sir, how would you describe the child's behavior?"

"Er...uhm...well, I would say she is... defiant, unintelligible...," he tore his mind for liable symptoms, "absolutely gauche..."

"Hmm," the doctor hummed, uninterested. "Anything else?"

"On more than one occasion, she has attempted to flee her home...and...," a spark entered Bamford's eyes, a visible notion, " and engaged in _licentious_ approaches involving her guardian. "

"Licentious, you say?" Fogg repeated with a newfound interest. His grey eyes travelled to Johanna's pale face, wavering with fatigue. "Please, sir, do continue."

"Not even an hour earlier, she claimed to have been acquainted with her deceased father. Delusional, mental case, this one is."

"That isn't true!" Johanna cried, shooting forward in her seat. The breath slipped from her throat at the abrupt movement and the shadows of the room cloaked the men's faces.

Calmly, Fogg leaned her back into the chair, and spoke; his tone was almost soothing. "Is this true, child? Do you often hear your father's voice, or see his face even?"

"Sir, please--" she sighed, too utterly exhausted to find her voice after her screams had blistered her throat.

"You do, there is no use lying to me. And your father_ is_ obviously a male."

"Yes, but--" She wrung her limp hands and blinked back tears when the man's voice overrode her own.

"So, I would be correct in saying you have delusions of nonexistent people, specifically of the male gender?"

Unable to speak, Johanna jerked her head into a shake, her eyes scrunching in misery.

With a smirk, the doctor turned towards Bamford. " Nymphomania. I am sure of it." He leaned towards the desk, grip still strong on Johanna, and groped for his pen. Once he grasped it, he reached forward and scrawled the diagnosis on a blank scrap of parchment. "I believe the Judge mentioned that the child's name is Barker?"

"Yes, Johanna Barker."

"The Judge's ward?"

"And such will remain obscured, Fogg, or health regulations will have a pristine interest in your establishment." A sneer crept onto Bamford's face, crude and leering. There was no detectable effort of even trying to hide it--or he would have had to check _himself_ into the asylum.

A smile stretched on the man's face. "But of course, sir." After the notes had been taken, the doctor returned both hands to the girl's bloody arm. He trailed his fingers over the bone, like a finger prodding out beneath her skin. "Beadle, on the top right corner of my desk, there will be a straitjacket. Please hand it to me."

Despite the searing pain in her body, the girl, entrapped beneath Fogg's hands, writhed for freedom. "You said you would not put me in one of those," she blubbered, a stream of long withheld tears seeping down her chin.

One hand reaching towards the withheld straitjacket, the other slamming Johanna's head into the back of the chair, Fogg exclaimed, "My God, a _hysterical,_ nymphomaniac, anorexic at that!"

Snorting with laughter, the Beadle knelt beside Mr. Fogg and handed him the jacket. "It is Turpin's wish that you keep the girl restrained as long as possible."

The man nodded, preoccupied with wrestling the girl's arms into the sleeves of the restraint.

Shrieking with sobs, Johanna pushed at her assailant and held her arms to her chest until Fogg wrenched her sore arm forward, received a scream of agony, and in her weak state, lost both arms to the binding fabric. The jacket was large on her, the sleeves stretching long past her wrists. It reeked of a foul odor, a stench that entwined with Death and its decaying victims.

It took mere seconds for Fogg to secure the straitjacket on Johanna--tightly around her ribs as he did for all of his new children--and once he had, she held her head low and simply wept, as if tears would bring her arms from the restraints, as if, somehow, they would convince her that she was not mad, and her father was not a mere illusion for her eye to entertain. He was living, breathing, and she had seen his face amongst the crowd because he had _been there_--hadn't he?

"She shall be locked away with children in similar condition until you return for her, sir. For the time being, are there any particular treatments you wish for the girl to endure?"

Endure--it took on more appeal if _treatments_ had been replaced with _torture._

"Little food. Little drink. Absolutely no open-air under any circumstances. I believe that is all the Judge has requested."

"Certainly." Standing erect, Mr. Fogg motioned towards the door, his tone of genuine warmth. "Dear sir, it truly has been a privilege. I will look after this poor undesirable for as long as need be. Until then, adieu. I do believe you remember the way out." He returned his eye to the girl, but glanced to the side. "Mind your surroundings."

Before the Beadle could bring himself to leave the room, let alone stand straight, his gaze seared Johanna's clouded eyes, noted the horrors that were reflected in her dimming youth. "I shall return soon, child, and when I do, I suggest you beg forgiveness from your guardian and give consent to his marriage proposal. You shan't live long in these conditions should you refuse."

She saw his lips moving, heard the words he spoke, but not a syllable of false-sentiment could fool her wise heart. Instead of responding to his advice, as sincere as it could have been, she whispered, "You saw what happened. You saw what _he_ did to me...," her breath fell shaky, "yet you stood by and stared...You let him _hurt_ me."

Eyes bugging like a frogs, Bamford lowered his head until his chin brushed his chest, a grown man caught in the wrong. Quiet, speaking to his own sour conscience, he replied, "There was not much else _to_ do."

Silence's air was thick and weighty, and then broken by the notorious Mr. Fogg. "Do be glad, birdie. You are with your own kind. Remember every sigh you draw drains a drop of blood from your heart; and you need all the blood you can save. Now, bid the kind gent goodbye and we shall get you settled in."

The child, both arms bound to her chest, blood seeping through the dirty cloth, her face distorted with unbefitting torment, let the words crawl between her teeth. "Goodbye, sir."

If spoken resentment could kill...

"See to it she is locked away immediately," the plump man said, shoulders broad while he breezed through the door as if to ward off any lurking horrors that lay beyond his vision.

When the Beadle had departed, and the doctor was free of watchful eyes, he wrenched the girl forward by her bloody, bound arm and wound a fist in her silken hair. "Shall we see how tasty you really are, my sweet, _sweet_ birdie?"

Down the hall, across from the rooms of caged prisoners, raving, moaning women, men rolling on straw and filth, Johanna Barker's screams flew to the Beadle's ears, ringing in his mind, flinging open the caskets of his deceased memories, beckoning the apparition of dead faces, a dead mother and father--_their _child that he had agonized beyond conceivable means.

Surrender a whoreson guilty of murder, and he will hang the fortnight without a moment's deliberation. Turn in a thieving whore and her breaths will abate at the hands of justice. But send a sane child into an asylum, rip her from the pieces of her innocent family, shatter her with the assault of her guardian and his best mate, and never wonder why she was receiving such punishment? Just turn one's head and blindly _punish_, _punish_, _punish_ until she willingly collapsed into the marriage bed--or until she received a short, ill-delivered death?

"_Where the fuck is the justice in this_?" a miniscule voice piped up in his brain. It was the--dare it be said!--dreaded voice of _reason_.

And still, a mouse forever enslaved by the big, bored cat, Beadle Bamford scampered to the asylum's exit, into the night where the weight of London's darkness was lighter than the guilt that forever sought him out, like a ghost that would never leave him to rest.

**186 Fleet Street**

If it were not for the fact that Sweeney Todd' s first customer was a British soldier, he probably would not have mustered the malice to split the bastard's neck open to begin with.

But the man _was_ a soldier, and he _had_ killed him, and ever since that jolting, electric pulse shocked every nerve of his body at the feel of blade snipping tendons, he found himself no longer in control of his feral impulses. Nay, he was no longer in control of _himself_. There was a raw hunger for more, for this power that he had been denied all of his life, a fiery thirst that he could only quench with a corrupt man's warm blood.

Customers would pour in like monsoon rain since that day, and he would converse lightly with them, asking questions that most men would take for granted in any conversation, be they civilized gentlemen or convict scum. "I am sure a handsome shave will benefit any decent, family man. Pardon me, though, have you any children, sir? A wife, perhaps? Foolish of me not to ask in the first place, sir." or the less prodding, but equally effective "Such an exotic hairstyle, sir! I dare inquire, are you from London?"

And if the customer had answered 'yes' to cherishing at least one living family member--be they near or distant, son or daughter, wife or betrothed--they would, unbeknownst to them, receive a pardon from death itself. Family would save them, that and their nearby homelands if luck was feeling generous that day. Londoners also received the pardon, though quite a few would die choking on their blood should they have proven fraudulent and devoid of breathing kin.

Much to his pleasure, Todd tended to target those who conjured _unpleasant _memories. If a priest would waltz in, and he was not entirely common in London, Sweeney would recall the tooth-pulling session he had endured in Botany Bay, when his daughter was tossed about as the Priest ignored the crying child, demanding his ache be tended to. If the proceeding customer was a lawyer from a distant area, then his mind would travel to the Old Bailey fifteen years prior, the very day he had been sentenced to Australia without a lawyer to even speak for him during trial. Why not actually _commit_ the crimes he had been falsely accused of? Fair game, fair kill, that's how he saw it.

He had a purpose now: slaughter every unwanted fragment of his past and stow away those he held dear. Never indulge in the past, but never forget it. Never kill a man who held a trace of humanity, for the sake of preserving it, but never forgive those who had ruined him and his family. His "girls" as he had once called them.

Minutes later, when the oven was hot and the kill was fresh, Mrs. Lovett, enslaved by her affection to her darling barber, would begin to bake the victims into meat pies, store them for her hungry customers (who had swarmed her shop at the mention of her Grand Reopening, claiming "Lovett's back!" as they gorged themselves to fatigue), and swab the barbershop's floor and chair clean of crimson death. The boy, Tobias, was of great help around Lovett's shop, but when the child would attempt innocent jests with the barber, he would receive a cold frown and a simple word or two of dissuasion. He was never entirely harsh with the child, the innocence reminded him too much of his family to be cruel, lost to the city aflame.

_It was humorous_, Sweeney thought to himself, _the world they lived in. The baker could try as she would at protesting excessive slaughter if only to maintain his health, with the prospering income set aside, and he would simply charm her with his wits, or alarm her with a foreboding step towards her slight figure. Not that he would hit her, nor would he even touch her; never would he hit a woman in his life, especially after his daughter..._

Then of course, there was that particular issue. His daughter, the child he had fallen to his knees for, wailing and lamenting, screaming and demanding that the Fates return her to him or suffer the consequences of their cruelty. And _They_ had refused, _They_ had kept his daughter stowed away in _Their_ greedy embrace.

_So what had he done in return to counteract the unjust punishment? He fucked with the Fates, of course! Now it was _he_ who held the power, the lowly convict that had once been held down and forced to submit to strength he could not withstand. He was a tyrant of the world, a silent predator amongst the herds of oblivious Londoners. He was Death, his razor was Death's hand, his eyes were Death's kindled glow, and his restless soul was Death's core. The Fates could only observe him as he slaughtered the world, each slit throat another memory of his sacred child lost._

"_Look here Fate, feel the helplessness I once felt, and watch me butcher your children_."

Strange, though, he would find a break in his work, and a thought stir his mind_: Even if, by some miraculous act, he had claimed his daughter back, how would he find the will to stop this bloodbath? Did he even deserve to drag an angel into his own personal Hell when she deserved so much more than what little he had to give? _

Their last encounter, the night Johanna was bleeding on the street and stolen away by the Beadle, had been his last living day. Lucy was a familiar pain, but the fact that he could no longer remember her face somehow stole some of the hurt away. But Johanna? No, if a single man passed by his shop, a tiny girl's hand in his own, it would be as if his own razor had plunged into his chest, twisted, and carved out his heart of stone, heart of blackness. The parental spark of protection had long since died, he no longer felt the desire to hunt for his missing child, a child whom he was unworthy to call his own. Anthony was in search of her, anyway, and though he would return to the shop days at a time, worn and devoid of happy news concerning the girl, Todd felt her safety would be in good hands if she had been found. For now, he had to keep the memories at bay. They would be the death of him.

_It was best_, he soon realized, _that she and her mother quietly slip away with time._ Of course her face would remain plastered in his cracking memory, of course he would always love her with all of his washed-out sentiment, but he could never be the man he once was. He was not capable of being her father; that part of him had withered and perished.

Death could never father an angel.

_It was a humorous world they lived in. A child; a stranger. A father; a killer. _

_Humorous indeed..._

Todd rubbed his razor free of any smudges and blew a speck of dust from its tarnished surface. The moist crack of a man's skull sang in Todd's ears as he gazed into the pit of the trapdoor, smirking at the heap of flesh that was once a disowned architect, hailed from France. True, he had no personal quarrel with architects, but he had set aside, oh, a _quarter_ of his entire life piecing together buildings for snobbish settlers. The thought of that, while he was shaving the stubble of the Frenchman's beard, had just ostracized any control, and so he could not resist gashing his neck until the man's windpipe shown under the red flow, like a tube severed in half.

The man had not struggled, but rather forced his fingers to the open slash in his throat, and so the rapid gush of blood turned sluggish. He had tried to scream and his voice was lost to the swoosh of his life, pouring out of him, and his eyes rolled in the back of his head as Todd stomped on the trapdoor pedal. The chair rocked backward and deposited his guest to his final doom, and as if it were a breathing thing, returned to its proper position, upright and welcoming.

And when the deed was done, and the blood was cleaned from his hands, a knock sounded from the barbershop's door.

Todd felt a faint, quirky smile on his lips. He motioned for the man to enter and waited. The bell's of the shop door jingled and faded as the customer stepped forward, removed his hat, and embraced the barber's stare.

Startled, Sweeney felt his neck strain at the sight of the wealthy man, the inquirer of his business in Dunstan's market after his contest with Pirelli and the lone man who spoke against the Beadle, commanding Johanna be assisted as she screamed for her father; the tragic night that had murdered him. Already, Todd felt his impulses retreat, and the man's fate was secured.

"Mr. Todd," the man said in that same, perfectly pronounced tone.

"How do yeh do, sir?" Sweeney replied, helpless against the raspy scrape of his words. _Damn it to hell, this man was bloody familiar!_

"Just fine...a shave, though, if you are free."

"Yes, have a seat, sir." He patted the chair's wooden edge and observed the man as he sat through squinted eyes. He took the man's hat in hand and tossed it in the corner, uncaring that it fell to the floor with a feathery tap.

The bowl of cream shook in his right hand , and he had to steady himself at the elbow with his left. Before he could apply the lather, though, the man asked suddenly, "You were the man that protested in the street against that girl being taken away. I'd say it was a month or so ago, and the scene did stir up quite a commotion."

Defiant veins bulged in Todd's hand, the one grasping at his razor until it rattled with his furious heartbeat. "And unless my memory fails, you were right beside me protesting."

The tension soon spread. "Yes, so who was that girl, Mr. Todd, and why have you not found her?"

For a split second, Todd envisioned slicing the man's throat to pulpy ribbons. He hissed as his razor closed in on the quarry, "I did not get your name,_ sir_."

"Why is that when I stood outside your shop, I saw men go in, and fewer come out?" the man continued, unrelenting. "Why is it that yeh 'aven't even rescued your daughter from that Beadle son o' a bitch, but gone off your bleedin' rocker instead?" His accent submerged into a rich, Cockney one, and he turned to glare at Sweeney, accusing daggers flying from his eyes. There was no sign of stiff sociability any longer, a mere facade the gentleman must have been playing at. "So where's your girl, _Sweeney Todd_, and 'ow the 'ell are yeh gonin' to get 'er back?"

Doubling the stranger's hostility, and the idea of Joanna endangered taunting his mind, Sweeney shoved his blade into the man's face, inches before his skin. The silver reflected in both men's eyes. His voice was throaty and low, a threatening hum of words. "Your name. Now."

The aurora of tension was then smashed to pieces as the man doubled over, deep chortles rumbling from his chest, then growing to a uproarious crescendo as he wiped at growing tears of mirth. He turned to glimpse at the barber, hollered yet again, and fell into another fit of hysterics. Scratching at his shaven chin, his grin broad, he chuckled to the barber, "Aw, come now, Ben! Yeh mean to tell me a bloody shave and a fancy coat stopped yeh from recognizing your good mate John?"

**Ha, damn I missed this character! Come on, reviewers! It's**_** John**_**! If you like it, if you love it (even if you hate it, but that's a discussion for another time) then review it!! Have a taste of Bitter Freedoms in its glorious chapters, when convicts roamed the Earth! Please do review, feedback is love! Thank you all...**


	38. Chapter 38

**Chapter 38**

**186 Fleet Street**

"Bloody--you..._sh--shit,_" Sweeney stuttered, the flat of his razor plopping against his thigh. "_John_?"

"Yes, Ben, I think we clarified my identity," John said, switching to his prim tongue, then heaving out another hearty minute of quivering laughter. "Though I am more formally known as John Horrigan as of now, the surname of me daughter in-law for the sake of an alias." He lolled his head back onto the seat's scarlet cushion and stared upward at the silent barber, eyes lit like the Australian sun where they had first met. "And yeh thought a trip upland would have taken longer than an itty bitty boat on the mighty Atlantic. Look at us, same place, same time...and I'll bet I got 'ere before the likes o' yeh!" The chair squeaked as he placed both hands on his knees, hair obscuring his eyes as he _guffawed _and _squelched_.

" Dammit, John, I would have killed you..."

The laughter subsided instantly, like a hand had grasped the sound and choked it to death. "Yea, Ben, about that...that_ killing_ bit." Sitting straight like a gent, but without the noted effort to be formal, John twiddled a cuff of his shirt and muttered, "I'd seen yeh change over the years, son. I've seen that crazed spark in your eye like a native's bonfire on the coast. You'd have lost your mind earlier if it weren't for your girl." He shook his head as the disconcerting gloominess of the situation settled in, like sand submerging to the sea's crusty bottom. "Christ, yeh went half mad worryin' over 'er every day, but when she was taken a year ago... yeh changed...and that spark returned." The man's voice was strangled to a hoarse murmur, "Now, yeh are different man altogether. I don't know what more yeh could 'ave been through to 'ave changed yeh so much, but 'ere yeh are, and their ain't no changin' fate. Nothing really frightens me anymore, mate...So tell me the truth, Benjamin Barker; 'ave yeh been killin' your customers?"

"My name--"

"And don't give me none of that _Sweeney Todd_ horseshit!" His voice rose, the voice of a disgruntled criminal. "I want an answer, and I best hear one now!"

A defiant brow arched. "And if I am killing them, John? What do you intend to do? Go to the law? Because I can thwart such a claim with a more realistic one. Word of escaped convicts tend to get around..."

"Oh, hush that up, Benjamin, you're acting like a tot." There was laughter in his words, but beneath it all was the smothered whine of fear.

Sweeney crossed his arms over his broad chest, now possessing the _appearance_ of a tot. His mouth nailed shut.

"Well," John grunted, bringing his hand up to stroke his beard, and lowering it upon touching naked skin, "like then and now, yeh need your girl to bring yeh back to sanity before yeh catch your death. So," he stood, studying London with a wary eye, "where_ is_ the little lady?" He broke the stares and glimpsed towards his previous bunking mate...long ago...

Again, that same blade cut deep into the barber's breast and drew out his iron heart, a bleeding pulp in a murderer's hand. "I don't know," he admitted.

"When I said yeh were mad, it was an understatement...My son, you're fuckin' _insane_. Benjamin Barker does not know where his daughter is? His _Johanna_? Has the antichrist blotted out the sun? Is the sky crashing down on our heads as well?"

"Kindly shut up, Mr. Horrigan, your jests are tempting me," spat Todd, brandishing his razor as Mrs. Lovett would wield her rolling pin. Course, he would not be able to kill the man, the reason he had made it out with his life, and he cursed his silent gratitude--a mere reminder that not all of his naïveté had been purged.

Backing away, gloved hands held high to mask the calluses and notched ruby scars, John retorted, "All I'm sayin' is that it was never like yeh to simply cast aside your daughter. I think if it I hadn't cared for yeh both, I wouldn't even be 'ere."

"Surprisingly," Sweeney said beneath his breath, the venom in his words pure in entirety, "you're not the first _irritable_ person whose told me I've completely abandoned my daughter."

"Well God grant that other irritable person a long life of...of-of _irritating _yeh!" John hollered childishly, fresh out of replying counters.

As if Fate decided to step in at that moment, thus mocking a wary Mr. Todd and flaunting the upper hand, Mrs. Lovett tapped on the door and, without awaiting his harsh "no" or some other rejection in that form, glided in.

"Mr. T, I was thinkin' of runnin' to the market for flour," she began, took note of the customer, and murmured her pardons, humble and hushed. Her eyes embraced the floor.

"Not at all," John smiled, "I was just speaking to this good gentleman concerning his business. It is remarkable that you allowed him to stay here, truly remarkable to give such a talented soul a room--"

"Save it," Todd snapped, sharp glance peeling from his razor, "she knows who I really am." The dark, uneasy gaze floated back to the blade, seeking the shine from its silver surface in order to fill the light devoid in his eyes.

A shocked grin was all that gave away John's surprise; that and his gaping, large eyes. "You mean to say that you know his true name..." The Englishman's accent was still intact; his scruples towards the barber remained.

_Oh, the sorrow, such is the ways of an ex-convict_, Todd thought, bitter and cynical as he toyed with his blade, catching the light, bouncing the glow around in his hands.

Placing her hands on both hips, a grin of her own taking form, Lovett chirped, "Yea, I know 'e's Benjamin Barker." Her lips faltered and fell. "And I take it yeh do too..." Her empty tone offered plenty of room for explanation, and John seemed to have taken the hint amiably.

"My name's John, formally known as John _Horrigan,_ and Ben 'ere was my bunking mate in ol' Botany Bay. Saved his arse nearly as many times as he's covered mine!"

She sighed a chuckle, more of a melancholy than amused gesture. "Mrs. Lovett, sir." Lacking the understanding of personal boundaries, Lovett floated forward and wound her arm tight around her barber's shoulders. His grimace went ignored either by her choosing or her insensibility.

"Anything else yeh know about 'im, darlin'?"

"I know that 'e was once a lovely father, but that was in _days of yore_, wasn't it Mr. T?" She gave him a challenging squeeze of his arm, and with a growl, he ducked away from her embrace and glowered at the framed London view.

"I take it you're the other--'ow did he say it?--_irritable_ person that's been buggin' him over that?"

A flash of vulnerability crossed the woman's face, undetected in her smile, but burning in the glint of her brown eyes. She would have scolded herself had she been unacquainted with the barber's brooding demeanor or harsh words, the insults that he spat like hellfire. It was perfectly clear to her, he only needed her for the business, or an alibi when foul-play occurred just above her head. But was there nothing that she could do to gain his favor, even a sliver of respect in her beloved barber's eye, not only as a business partner, but as a source of solace as well?

She glimpsed at the side of Todd's head; he caught her from the corner of his eye, flared his nostrils, and snapped his gaze away.

"Yes, I suppose I am the other irritable one," the sting in her chest disappeared, or simply receded like a common coward, and she added to her confession with stiff satisfaction, "and proud of it, mind yeh!"

Struck dumb, a sharp hand of stupidity pummeled John's face. He exclaimed, "I_ like_ her!"

Sweeney turned to offer the baker a fleeting grimace, as if by someone exclaiming her worth in their eyes proved she held actual appeal, a value that he had been blind to since he had stepped foot into her shop. Maybe there was more to the woman; but, hell, he did not see as other people did! Darkness was of better vision than anything else. Light beckoned the truth; everyone yearned for it, no one could bear it. If a baby was born blind, he would not know he was blind, or even understand the mere concept, until someone explained he was, and that there was a world beyond his sightless hands. Sweeney Todd knew _that _world, but chose to obscure it.

"I think, my dear, with our combined forces," John's perfect accent swayed under a stampede of chuckles as he swept Lovett's hand into his own, "we can convince our dear Mr. Todd that he needs to get his mind in check...Shall we initiate the agitating, Mrs. Lovett?"

"Course, love," she gushed, taking the opportunity with fresh enthusiasm.

Turning on his heel, clutching his razor, the sky framing his looming figure like a portrait of the Devil, Todd snarled, "I'll kill you both and think nothing of it."

"Alright, Ben, I'm usually a tolerant man, but your petty threats are beginning to irk me."

"Now you feel my aggravation. Warm congratulations to you."

This time, without even a driven attempt at comical relief, John released the baker's hand and began a hostile advance forward, full stride unfaltering. "Yeh act as if yeh don't care, as if yeh can live life just fine without your own girl. Johanna was the reason yeh saved your breath in that shit-hole, the reason yeh held on to a_ splinter_ o' that humanity. "

The comment toppled the barber's barriers and pierced his heart with a sharp tip. Tears pooling in his throat, Sweeney traced the piercing edge of his blade across his sleeve, dangerously close to sinking the silver into his own pale flesh. "She was," he choked out.

John shrunk back, well aware he had bludgeoned the barber's silent wounds to a bleeding point. "Alright," he said, something hidden in his tone until his next words were spoken, "how we gonna get 'er back?"

"I told you, I don't know where she is, dammit!" There was no longer a trace of sorrow in his tone. Anger had blotted _that_ bugger out.

Desperate, racking his brain for a predicament Sweeney could understand, John bellowed, "Barker, think of the Rocks! The place that nearly destroyed all of who yeh were! Think of the Rocks, remember how it felt, caged and helpless! Now place your _daughter_ in that thought, beside those men, _hurting her and hurting her_ like they did to _you_!"

Sweeney met John at the center of the floor, two intent dancers ready to waltz to their death, and clenched his large fists. "Don't you dare, John..."

"How else can I make yeh give a fuck about your own kid?"

"Boys," Mrs. Lovett warned from behind them, a daring foot inching forward, "I ain't afraid to take yeh both down with a meat cleaver."

John sighed, squeezed his eyes shut, and retreated to Mrs. Lovett's side. His expression bore agony, as if his surrender plunged him into the stinging recesses of the underworld. "I can see you're a bit irritable and until yeh decide to put your mind to finding your child, rather than slaughtering the whole goddamned world, I'm shutting up..."

Body still drawn forward, Todd bared his fists like a street fighter eager to riposte an oncoming assault. His teeth ground together, gnashing, and his jowl strained until bullets replaced the fleshy muscle of his jaw.

"I'll keep an eye out for your girl, alright?"

Fully aware he was acting like a violent fool, Todd reclined into his corner seat, pressed his fingers to his eyes, loosening the stony muscles of his back. He raised his head upward, attempted what he could at smiling,--it was like needles diving into his skin--and said, "Daughter in-law, huh?"

"Yea, my son got hitched years after my transport, can yeh believe it?" The two embraced a warmer topic, though Todd still felt a bitter twinge of jealousy that he had no news to give concerning his own family--positive news, least to say.

"And," Todd coursed his fingers over his 'stress streak' as Lovett had called it, "how is your family?"

"Ah, glad to have their father and husband back, no use denyin' it. My poor Ruth nearly choked on her own tears at the sight of me, and my son, Edward, his little wife had already picked up on calling me 'father' after the situation was explained. Now I'm apparently her "estranged uncle" living with them. Girl's quite well off, too, gave my family the best of the best, and helped me assume the role of a proper gent."

"Everyone is content with concealing your identity?"

"Everyone. My family, my son's wife, and not a person suspects! 'er family is outlying, yeh see, so assuming their title ain't so difficult." The same, broad smile took place as he jut his thumb towards Lovett. "And if their tutoring has taught me anything, it is that a gentleman usually offers a lady his chair when they are conversing."

Scowling at John's etiquette lecture, but feeling a pang of remorse nonetheless, Sweeney motioned for the blushing, bashful baker to sit in the barbering chair. She sent the padded seating a shake of her head, russet curls bouncing across her squinted eyes--the only eyes he could remember in prison--and leaned over the armrest instead. "Thank yeh both," she said quietly, a flush to her cheeks, looking more and more like a timid schoolgirl each passing minute. Yet, instead of gushing the barber to death concerning trivial things like income, decorating the dining area, or that Toby boy, she was poised, feminine, and... _calm._

Perhaps the antichrist really _had_ blotted out the sun.

"So," the barber began, unable to stop his eyes from dashing to the baker, waiting for her to interrupt him. When she had not, he blurted out the remainder of his sentence, leaving her with no opportunity to cut him off. "Anyone else make it out alive?"

"Plenty," John leaned back, "but never enough to suffice. "

"Seemed like everyone had...been killed," Sweeney noted. His voice was quiet, mournful.

"Naw, there's plenty of us walkin' around. Yeh just 'ave to open your eyes and see 'em. Convicts don' t like being noticed, but if yeh squint, there they'll be."

Sweeney grunted, "Peter told me you'd been killed as well." A stabbing memory of a child by his side, rotting in the sun, tore him from the room..._He was on the Atlantic, the salt was burning his eyes and open wounds, his feet were bloody and aching, liquid acid rose to his throat as the waters churned and swayed, his bones felt like knives under his skin when he breathed, and the stench of festering flesh sank deep into the pit of his stomach._

"Oh, Peter? Christ, did yeh find the tiny rascal? I swear on my life, that child gave me a heart attack when we were cornered!" John studied the room, waiting for the teen to appear from nowhere, healthy and sound. "Where's the boy, then?"

The pause was pregnant, carrying the child of ill-delivered news. "Dead...Clung to me arm a week while we were stranded on the waters after he...gave in..."

Silence had woven its mark on the room. "Dead?" John said in verbatim. His face twisted with grief, the grin long since forsaken, and the gradual rise and fall of his eyes indicated Todd should elaborate.

"After we had separated that night in Cape Town, I was apprehended...they took me to the seclusion cells with dozens of others. I escaped," he frowned, warning John not to question how he had managed to evade certain death--the memory still repulsed him, though he continued such slaughter now as a daily ritual, "and when I was running for the docks, Peter found me along the way. We slipped into a boat and sailed...didn't know where we were 'eaded, though. And after a few weeks, he just died...couldn't handle it anymore. I thanked him, and pried his hands from me, and he sank deep, deep into the water, until I couldn't see 'im anymore...Would've been dead too, but a sailor managed to spot me on the seas. Anthony Hope, 'is name is..."

The tale was short-lived, yet brimming to the surface with simmering emotion. Lovett and John sat still, their mouths opened _O's, _and there was a silence that felt like a thousand different forms of holy hell. "I've said it before, and I'll say it again," John muttered, rubbing at this eyes as if to rid himself of bloody sights, "Ben, from the moment I first met yeh, I wondered how the _fuck_ yeh were still alive." He turned to Lovett, a bashful, but strained, smile on his lips. "Pardon me language, love."

Instead of responding with her girlish, chirpy demeanor, she simply stared at the barber, such clouded grief in her eyes, he had to dodge her stares and concentrate on the dusty aged floorboards. (Was it even possible that his two angels had trod upon that very floor?) He had bloody sights of his own to evade.

After rubbing his face raw for the third time, sighing for the fourth, and closing his eyes for the hundredth time--putting it lightly-- John shifted and stood. "I best be off now. I told Ruth I'd be home in an hour's time. Worried sick 'bout me whenever I leave, God bless 'er."

Todd wobbled to his feet, gaze lost in the soiled, cotton clouds of London.

"Speaking of which," the man began, a brighter hope lighting the room, "did yeh ever find your wife, Ben? Lucy, I believe 'er name was?"

The barber's head sunk and the tips of his eyebrows met at a sharp ridge. His skin wrinkled with winding torment--torment sparked by the truth that he had hoped to avoid, to cram into the corner of his mind and spurn. The truths that he wanted to blind himself to. "...Judge Turpin," his voice shook like it carried the weight of the earth and sun, plummeting to blackness, akin to the shade of his eyes, "he _raped _her," his fists tingled with electricity, it shocked his blood, "he drove her _mad_," a beast began to prowl and crawl at his ribs, "and he_ hanged _her in the back of Newgate."

John spoke quickly, clinging to a dying hope that he could wrestle the man's justifiable anger with comfort. "I could go to Newgate, get some information on her death, perhaps give yeh some closure--"

"She was unidentified...nobody knew 'er..." Of all deaths to undergo, and that was how his beloved, sweet, virtuous Lucy had met her end. Tormented and murdered, left to die, so broken, so alone...

Truly at a loss, John shook his head. "So what's the plan, Sweeney Todd? Yeh gonna try to get back at the Judge or somethin'?"

"I'll see myself dead rather than a failure; I'm _going _to kill him." Todd declared, barely realizing Mrs. Lovett had slipped from the chair and hovered by his side, waiting, watching, listening...

"Yeh? You're gonna kill Judge Turpin?" The ex-con babbled, eyes wide and glassy. "One man against a goddamn tyrant? I'm afraid I can't let yeh do that, Ben, cause not only is that reckless, it's a bloody fool's wish, a plea for suicide, _and if I didn't love the idea so fuckin' much, I wouldn't agree to help yeh_."

Sweeney was not stunned beyond thought at John's willingness to go along with murder, not by any means, but it was safe to say his breathing slowed to a crawl and he could almost taste his heart in his mouth. "I don't need your help," he began.

"Hogwash, Todd, look inside and see that you're filled with it." He fought another grin. "Let me know when yeh think yeh 'ave the bastard and I'll lend a hand."

Sweeney grimaced, "First, I don't know where to find you. Second, I'll not let yeh help when you have a family to think of, and third--"

"Let me stop yeh there, sonny. I may have a family in jeopardy, but it's not for reasons yeh think. I 'ave a son, nearing your age when yeh were arrested, with a wife and a child on the way. Can I honestly live a comfortable life knowing that the hand that manages the likes of London is corrupt? And as for the finding me bit, seek me out in St. Dunstan's market in the early afternoons. My family adores goin' there on the weekdays. It's where I found yeh, ain't it?"

Opening his mouth to reply, but with no words yet selected for speech, John, yet again, silenced the barber.

"Please, Ben. If yeh don't want me help, then fine, but at least seek me out so I can _be_ there. I need to see the man, the blue bastard who almost ruined my life, put to an end. Give _me _a little closure, if yeh will."

Mrs. Lovett interjected, another crushing blow to her business partner's willpower. "He really ain't askin' for much, Mr. T. And he's 'elped yeh quite a bit."

Todd's face turned towards the woman's, scorn sprawled on his glowering eyes and pursed lips, then swiveled to John, greeting him with the same perturbed expression. "Fine. I'll seek you out."

"And I'll keep an eye out for your daughter. And _yeh," _he added, coat trailing in the air as he swiveled to Mrs. Lovett, "will 'ave a pleasant day and keep me good man in check."

She chuckled, and Todd's lips quirked. Had he ever heard her laugh so much in one day?

"I'll do so, sir, and probably die tryin'," the woman swore. Her coarse, dry hand grasped the barber's.

John's eyes flashed to each face, a corner of his lip twitching upward into a smile. His gaze remained vacant, empty. "Thank yeh, doll."

After retrieving his hat from the floor--groaning that "his back screeched at such labor" while doing so, and frowning towards the silent barber--John made for the door. "Try to stay out of trouble, Mr. Todd," he said over his shoulder, any kindness now washed out from his face as he took note of the clutched razor. For once, John appeared older than he looked. "And remember to seek me out."

Todd nodded, feeling no desire to speak. His voice had drifted somewhere between his mind and his throat.

**Fogg's Asylum**

An asylum. A home for the mentally deranged. A prison for the stable minded. Where fear has complexities no one dared contemplate, where the children were dragged by their necks to meet their death...some welcoming it, some resisting it. Those who resisted would soon submit. They all did.

It had been a month.

Johanna found herself amidst the realms of lunacy, floating between reason and the susceptibility, the surrender that would lead her by her hand to calamity. Locked in a cell that smelled of bodies and mold, pain and tears. It smelled nothing like home, it smelled like all joys were nowhere to be found. It smelled like heartless souls had wandered and laid claim to the prison devoid of sentiment, of warmth, of even a meager beam of light.

It would not be so hard--close one's eyes, kneel onto the icy stone, a fallen angel in prayer, and open one's arms, waiting, yearning.

Let Death take you by the hand; let him walk with you.

The first week had been horrible, yet somehow durable. The lack of human communication continued to irk her, but she had lived quite a while lacking such, so it was not a detriment from survival. The scarcity of food or water, fresh and clean at that, was not much of a problem at first. She barely ate anyway. The darkness was perturbing, but a light would begin to shine as she thought of Anthony and her father. They had seen her, they would save her. She did not have to worry; it would only strain her...As she waited.

Another week, and the infection had begun to spread.

One usually associates infection with sickness, a disease that rapidly contaminates a body, and steals fragments of life each passing day, each batted eye or quivering breath. But if one thinks long and hard, contemplating the difference between sickness and lunacy, a conclusion would be reached. They're one in the same.

Lunacy: the incurable infection.

And, God, did it spread like _wildfire_.

Days prior, Johanna would have measured time by her own trivial hunger, or by the weighted droop of her eyelids. Since then, her senses were wired, and she no longer nibbled at the moldy bread or sipped the stale, foul water. She could barely settle herself into the filthy, straw-scattered floor, barefoot, a lone silent soul amongst hoards of panting, stuttering lunatics. Locked in a room with numerous women, yet so alone, and so betrayed. One week, no one had come for her.

And when her senses became a mutiny against her will, and she reached for the water or bread, a soft voice in her mind, gentle and loving, would whisper, "Come, sweetheart, put that down. Do not eat and do not drink. For if you do, we cannot be together ever again."

Then the mutiny against her heart would unfold. "Yes, papa," she would find herself sighing in return to the solitary voice that resided in her head, though she could have sworn to have felt his breath tickle her ear.

The women, the Lord's scorned and rejected offspring, found an interest in the girl who was not like them; a fresh soul to dirty. They touched the girl, clawed at her, screamed all accusations they could summon, words that held no meaning to sane minds, screeches that spoke volumes to the mad_. Why_, Johanna could discern their voices, though their mouths were closed to intelligible words, _are you not like us_? _Come, Johanna, and forget. Sink down, sweetie, and let the children be your friends._

She found herself listening to them, slowly uncurling her fingers from the memories.

Infected.

_Let the children walk with you._

Days crawled and limped into endless nights, a silhouette would stand guard by the cell's door, speaking in the voice that Johanna could distinguish from anywhere. "Give in, my love," her father's voice caressed her thrashing mind, calming it like a wounded animal, "I_ want_ you to join me."

Oh, how she wanted to join him as well.

"Please, my dove, fly home."

But as the weeks passed, he never came. No Anthony, no father. Not a soul, not a care.

Her thoughts fell, her will was crippled. _Death could not be all that bad,_ she would think to herself, pensive. _Death never excluded a single being, he was a peaceful retreat of welcome when the world was all too much to bear. So why had her father demanded she refuse Death so long ago, when Death was always present and her father had forsaken her?_

Three weeks, and she had acquired changes that seized control over the course of a lifetime.

Insanity was tangible, it could be felt seeping into her blood, it could be seen in the eyes of every unfortunate in the asylum--even its workers--and it could be heard, through her father's voice, soothing her, coaxing her to complete the forbidden journey. To cross over from life and salute her demise.

She had never refused her father before; why should now be any different? Even though she was as loathed as a bad memory, as discarded as a scrap of waste, what right did she have to refuse her father's wishes?

The air was thick, the room was cold, her stomach was hollow, and her eyes were trained on the ceiling as she laid flat on grimy, encrusted hay, sometimes brushing against a foot or a hand, sleeping with her gaze open and locked on nothing.

It had been a month.

Her life was slipping away with each shaky beat, her eyes were glazed over with exhausted tears. She could feel her skin sliding over her bone, and then stretching tight; her cheeks plunged into her skull. Golden hair was now the color of soiled hay, of the murky sewage in the corner of the cell. Her limbs ached, her joints creaked. Her pale skin was blackened by dirt and ashes...because the city was on fire...and Fogg's asylum was the hungry furnace that fed it.

She was the children's blinded bird, twittering and flapping down..._into the deep_...

And though Johanna whispered the names of every person she had known and cared for each night, before her body was disabled for a brief, purloined sleep, Johanna could feel that the memories were diminishing; and she could no longer remember the boy in Botany Bay who had adored her yellow hair, or the man with a limp who had dried her tears the first week of labor, or the women she had befriended in the small, sewing factories. Her father was now a ghost that haunted her from outside the door, holding his hand out to her as she sobbed and clung to the bars, reaching for him in vain.

Faces were fading. Names were forgotten. The Judge and Beadle floated in her nightmares, lingering, and looming. They would not go away. The ghosts would _never_ go away.

But she remembered her father's face, simply because he stared at her from all the unreachable places; in her dreams, beyond her cell, just outside the bars.

It had been a month, and Johanna felt she had been born in Fogg's asylum. One month, and

she was counting her breaths

she was relinquishing,

and she was _dying_.

_ Come, Death, you are my father now._

**Har-di-har-har, joke's on the demon barber (much sympathy for little Johanna. Don't worry, a little sleepover in an asylum can't last that long...*gulp*...) Reviews are love, so please drown me in it!**


	39. Chapter 39

**A/N: I'm not going to lie, here. The first part of this chapter was damn creepy for me to write. Read on and Good luck. **

**Chapter 39**

**186 Fleet Street**

There was a lack of slaughter days after John's brief visit, and the direct consequence of scarce food supply was a severe blow to Mrs. Lovett's business. The desperation for meat became so dire, the baker was forced to purchase actual produce from a butcher shop--though she hardly complained--and made to dodge any inquisitive words from Londoner's as they took notice of her presence in a local meat shop.

"Mum!" cried Toby as Lovett stepped through the shop, and she stifled a giggle at the way he balanced three plates on his right forearm and kept a pitcher of gushing ale clasped in the other. Slimy grease soiled his working apron and caked onto the bottom of his tiny chin. The boy's brow glistened with sweat that rolled from his disheveled, chocolate hair, sliding to his upper lip. "I thought you'd never come back!" He yelped as a plate teetered on the edge of his arm.

This time, peals of laughter would not be repressed. Pressing the package of meat close to her chest, Mrs. Lovett chortled and ruffled his hair with a free hand. Sweat glistened on her palm. "Thank yeh for watching shop, love," she cooed, and spared a gaze around the dining area, crammed with impatient, gorging customers. No matter how late it was into the night, the dinner rush was always treacherous, and though she had deserted the boy for no longer than a few minutes, her absence was crushing.

"Not a problem, mum," he said, but his young face told differently. _Not a problem, a_ monstrosity.

Twisting a smile onto her face, Mrs. Lovett squeezed past the swarming customers around her counter, and began to tuck bloody meat from its packaging into molded, floury dough. She greased the meat strips with lard , rolled dough atop the open pie as a lid, and plopped it onto a tray destined for the oven.

Across the cluttered rows of tables in the outer dining area, Toby was stumbling over propped out shoes and maneuvering around isolated chairs. Once the boy had poured liquor into a needy customer's cup, he bared a grin and returned inside the building.

As the child strode to his mum's side, a disheveled man stumbled for the door and collided with Toby. The ale swooshed and doused Toby's shirt, soaking him, and his skin looked like paper through the thin, dripping white of his shirt. The man observed the aftermath of their collision with a blank face, then scurried from the shop.

Fear pounced into the lad's heart, tearing at it, and Toby sent a worried frown toward his employer. His body naturally drew a step back; he comforted himself in placing his open palms before his face, to both hide his panic--a common sign of weakness in the workhouse-- and to ward off any blows that he was so accustomed to.

With a comforting smile, though sadness weighed her lips down and blotted her eyes, Mrs. Lovett approached the boy. She slid a thin arm around his tensed shoulders. Her gentle hand wound around his wrists and brought the upheld hands to his sides.

"No need for that, love," she whispered to him, and he could discern her voice from the wave of conversation with ease. Even if it was an army of almshouse children that roared to the skies, he still would have heard his mum's voice, directly from heaven's skies, sent by the merciful Lord himself.

Young eyes wavered and lifted up to gaze at her; sad, beautiful eyes. A child's eyes. And he could speak only the first words that would ever come to mind. "Yes, mum," he nodded, when his throbbing heart yearned to cry, _I love you mum._

The lad started when a customer bellowed, "Ale, boy!" from the outlying side of the shop, and a brief grimace brought age to his features. He sighed, turning to cater to the man who raised his empty cup and waved it about like a king at a banquet.

And in the prospering world of business, any entrepreneur would be fully aware that no matter how much time was left in the hour before closing, a second was weighted with the stretch of a year--at the very least--and by the time that last customer had filed out, a good century of excruciating labor had stolen an atrocious portion of their energy.

Such was the case of the baker and the boy.

Mrs. Nellie Lovett could not deny the urge to collapse into the thin cushions of her parlor loveseat when the shop had closed. Her leg bones seemed to have splintered, her head clogged with ache that had accumulated each lagging minute of the day. Her feet had blistered over the past week; surely now they bled.

The moment of relaxation was short-lived. When the barber's footsteps brought shudders to the ceiling above her head, when Toby was still swabbing the scraps of food and waste from the tables, Mrs. Lovett teetered to her feet and wobbled outside. She ascended to the barbershop, feet dragging, her sore fingers tugging at her billowing skirts. When she had reached the shop door, she glimpsed inside the foggy windowpane, like peering through frosted glass, ventured a knock, and let herself in.

"Hello, Mr. T," she greeted the stalking silhouette of the room, the shadow that paced from one end to the other in an entranced pattern, an epiphany springing to life with each mechanical step.

_Tap. Tap. Tap. _

A pause, weighted with anxiety, pointy silence...then quiet, hissed words...

"What's the point in knocking," the barber growled, "if you're to come barging in anyway?"

"I see your point, love," she sighed and straightened her powder-coated glove, "so I s'pose I might as well forget the knockin' and just let myself in. Somethin' tells me yeh enjoy me company."

Snorting, the barber glared towards his pocketed razor. "Of course I do."

And now, the purpose of her actual visit pushed to the front of her thoughts. She placed both hands on her rigid hips, waltzing forward to face him. Their gazes never did meet. "Had to buy meat from the butcher again, Mr. T," she said, the following words growing calmer. "I suppose that your buddy from Botany Bay talked some sense into yeh, ay?"

This had stolen his attention. Both of Mr. Todd's eyes darted to the woman's, his gaze already churning and bubbling with threats. "What do you mean?" he asked in a soft tone. A wall of rage backed his hushed words.

She turned her moon-white cheeks towards the city, observed how it bled with smog. "Yeh haven't been _gettin' _a lot o' your customers," she dragged a finger across her neck, cutthroat fashion. A smidge of panic entered her gaze and she whipped her face towards him for a second time. "But that's not a bad thing, love." There was a smidge of light in her glassy, almond eye.

The barber locked his jaw in a scowl and hissed, "I have been killin' them, Lovett." His eyes jabbed at her. "You haven't been paying attention."

Her laced hands curled into fists. The blisters and burns on her hands stung. "Oh, 'ave yeh now?" The words were steady and sharp--a spoken bullet for Todd to dodge. "Then who've yeh gotten?"

"I don't know what their bloody names were," he spat, a tone of exhaustion coinciding with his bitter tone. There was an absence of blood thirst in his eyes, an absence that almost made him look human.

The woman smirked, shook her head, and ducked away from the barber's heated glare. "You've gone soft. That John fellow sent yeh a piece o' reality, hand-delivered. I'll 'ave to thank 'im for it later."

Just when the negativity had seemed to recede, it spiraled and smashed into the barber with staggering power. He seemed to have been jostled by the monstrous spite of her baffling claim. "I've not gone soft, woman!" he barked, his tone crushed at the sound of approaching steps.

A smile--a wry, crooked, and foreboding smirk--grew on his pale lips. Light oozed into his eyes, hot light, the illumination of pure hellfire. Only his razor could reflect a portion of his eye's madness in the moonlight, and its shine leapt with joy from wall to floor, ceiling to door, flaunting its silvery surface for all greedy stares to caress. It was a boastful little thing, it was.

"Watch me," he swore to her and to himself. "This one will die."

Todd shrunk back, shoulders hunched with heavy weight. He wore the same mask of murderous fervor, a parched stare, a raw hunger etched on every pale feature of the demon's face. How he loved his friend, how it boasted to the world, tempted it to gaze upon its glow before it beckoned a loyal, crimson flow. He would taste tang on his lips, smear the thick, creamy scarlet on his hands, and drench himself in it with as much zeal as a priest would to holy water.

A man's coat filled the frames of the shop's door. "Are you open now?" he inquired as he poked his head inside of the shop, removing his hat to reveal bristly, wires of white hair. His scalp gleamed under the thin strands.

"Yes, sir," Sweeney purred. "Now please, have a seat."

Nodding, the customer shrugged off his coat and handed it to the barber, who then grasped it and flung it in the corner.

"Just a shave, Mr. Todd."

The crazed look in Todd's eye had not diminished, and he grunted something unintelligible as a response. He grasped the bowl of shaving cream--his razor propped against the porcelain in one hand--and pressed the silence as he lathered his customer's stubble.

_This would show the damned woman_, his mind snickered, firm and clear. _She would never refer to him as soft again..._

A miniscule soul in the corner, Mrs. Lovett observed the scene with a deep frown. She would not leave--that would have been her silent defeat. She remained there, a bystander to coldblooded murder, and waited for the kill. It would be the first time she would observe a man gurgle and die at the blood-soaked hands of Sweeney Todd; God only knew she had never anticipated watching a grown man meet such a gruesome end. Then again, she never would have predicted being a lovesick, cannibal cook, whose affection condoned the slaughter of so many.

The crisp crunch of peeling stubble drifted to Lovett's ears, a sound of impending doom to her, and a sweet, melodic stroke to the barber's senses. The razor wandered over bare skin, and descended down the man's throat with graceful curves, up, down...up, down. It kissed the flesh, it nibbled and nipped.

Todd's arm arched in the air, crooked at the elbow, and he withheld the razor for the fatal plunge. But words from the customer's creamed lips delayed him.

"Do you have any children, Mr. Todd?" The man's face was forlorn; a mass of pain creased, scabs patching his mouth, gray skin clumping on his bony cheeks, wrinkles that looked like tear tracks in the moonlight.

It was the first time the barber had_ seen_ him.

"Yes," Todd found himself admitting, incapable of passing forth lies, "a daughter." A certain air around this man was unsettling, like an unwanted look into the future.

"That is good. I had a feeling you did, sir. Perhaps it is an extra sense we fathers have, a sense that can tell a man and a parent apart...I, too, had a daughter." His fingers twitched and stretched to the darkness ahead of him, reaching to clutch open air. His arm remained immobile, protesting the movement. "She's gone now. Far away."

"Married?" Todd guessed when a familiar voice in his head jeered at such a foolhardy question. He knew the real answer.

"Dead."

A lump began to grow in the barber's stomach. "I apologize, sir." He noticed his arm had fallen when he heard the razor clank against the bowl of cream.

"She died a year ago, the end of this week. I thought I should be clad like a gentleman when I visit her sepulcher."

"How old?" Sweeney questioned as his pitch scaled a higher, desperate climb.

"Sixteen when infected. The disease was rapid, though. My little dove did not live to see her seventeenth."

Sweeney Todd said nothing, and instinctively abandoned shaving the customer. His jaw hung open, but his lips crammed shut. A fine mist of sweat had begun to drip down his brow. Something inside of his chest awoke and pushed at his body, screaming, sobbing, begging for his own little dove.

The room grew cold, the breaths he drew stung his throat.

"I miss her something terrible, Mr. Todd." The gentleman's voice cracked. No sobs, though. " The pain is indescribable. You'd think it would fade along with time, but it doesn't, sir. It comes back at you as a bad memory. I only wish I had savored the time I had with her. " He glanced at Todd, portraying a reflection of the barber's misery on his aged face , where sorrow was so indescribable, so faceted. "I feel closer to her now, sir. Do you find that odd? The moment I walked in here, it was as if I could feel her--"

A choking sound whimpered in the back of the barber's throat. He grasped his razor by its blade until his knuckles were white, felt his skin split and bleed. Sharp rings of pain exuded his chest like the warm, thick pump of blood. Blood that shot from splintered skin. Blood of the innocent.

"--so close to me...like Death was no longer far away."

Todd could hear a child in one ear and an imploring man in the other. His wife's strenuous screams between the two, childish laughter, screams, laughter, Benjamin's pleas, Johanna' s tears, Lucy's laughter, a Judge's gavel...A mad whirl of voices, sweet voices that had given him reason, callous voices that had taken his existence. Laughter, screams, gavel: the clashing sounds of Life and Death.

"Leave, sir," Todd shook, trembled, crammed his arms into his gut, "I cannot assist you today."

_"Kill him, Benjamin." Was that Lucy's voice?! But where was she? No, Lucy, don't say such! God, leave her to rest! Leave her to rest! "Drown yourself in his blood, Benjamin." _

_Laughter--screams-- pleas--tears--gavel!_

_"May the Lord have mercy on your soul...and yet he has already damned you." _

Voices whispered darkness into his ear and it drowned his eyes, he saw shadows, he heard children moan, young men grovel, the shrill, cutting edge of a woman's mind shuddering and collapsing. Descending into madness.

"Stop it," Sweeney spat, blinding himself with his palms. Oblivion pooled onto his skin; it did nothing but tease him, spit images at him of his two girl's, eyes open, a thin stream of blood dripping from their golden spun tresses to their glossy, rosy lips. A vulture's claw ripped out his heart and thrust it at his feet.

_"I'll die if we are parted, papa. I'll die."_

In the corner, a golden child stood clad in black lace, skirt brushing the dusty floor as she glided forward. The edges were rimmed with grey specks of dirt, the color of London's sky, the color of bitter tears shed in forlorn solitude. Tears of convicts, tears of the children... Oblivious to the baker, with eyes only for her father, the little golden child floated a mere foot before Todd. Every inch of erased distance between the pair was yet another feature lost on her sweet, youthful face.

_One step, her eyes were black pits. _

Todd found his feet were nailed to the floor. His fingers curled around his ears and squeezed, forcing the screams, the laughter, the echoing bangs of courtroom gavels from his mind.

_Squeeze out the memories, hide your face, forget your reason and your life__**. **_

_ Second step, her face was tawny and stretched. _

"Sir?" the customer inquired. "Everything alright?" His voice swirled and melded into the shrieks of ringing noise.

_ Third step, her lips were cracked and bloody._

Sweeney's stomach churned dry dust, it mixed with acids, and rose to his throat. Heaving, gagging, the barber shook his head as if to drain the sounds from his ears, and leaned heavily on the side of his chair.

_Fourth step, ripples of brown streaks painted in her hair. _

Hands, human hands, coiled around his chest, pulled him away from the barbering seat and the alarmed client. Sweeney's feet remained frozen ice blocks, he could not shift from the spot.

"I'm sorry, sir," a woman said--the baker, "he's been very sick, 'e 'as. Yeh _must _depart."

"But my shave?"

"No need for payment! Please, leave now!"

_ Fifth step, deep, black circles around her sockets, ringlets of shade. _

_"Stay there, Johanna. Daddy can't love you anymore," a voice in his throat said, gagged by his closed lips. "Stay there...go play with the children."_

A door slammed, bells screamed, the baker's voice shouted his name, those human hands stroked his face. His eyes remained fixated on the progressing child, his own grief slashed his insides and shredded him to bloody strips. When he stared at the girl, the ghostly visage, he could have sworn he saw right through her.

_ Sixth step, a tiny straightjacket pinning her blood-soaked arms into an x across her chest. _

_"I died without you, papa...They killed me like they killed mama."_

"You're alive, Goddamn it!" he cried, hoarse, veins streaming raw gushing rivers of _pain_.

_The little skeleton danced forward, empty, white eyes flashing wide then narrowing to black, flaunting the death that slumbered in her stares. He had blinked once, and there she was, before his face, breathing onto his skin. She smelled of sewage and decay, smears of gore splattered her cheeks. Her eyes stretched wide again, exposing the pale , glowing white around her pupils, and a corner of her lip twitched. A child's hand-- a _dead_ child's hand-- slithered onto his neck. Leaning forward, she tickled his skin with flowery patterns, her head rested in the crook of his neck as he yearned to slide his arms around her gaunt ribs, just to hold her. _

_"Look, daddy," she giggled, vibrating against his throat, "you're infected, too."_

A burst of blinding light, a last piercing whistle of noise, and the girl had vanished. Her haunting presence still remained, it kept the air cold while it boiled in his mind.

"Mr. T! Would yeh look at me, dammit?!"

"_Six _steps_," _he whispered to himself, clutching the cold air where the girl had once stood.

"Six _what_?!" Lovett repeated as she cupped his cheeks in her palms. His face was clammy and perspiring, he gaped at the corner of the room. Her own gaze crawled in the direction of his, then back to his pale, almost translucent face. "Lord, what is happening to yeh? Yeh nearly gave that poor customer a bloody heart attack!"

_6_

"Did I miss something, Mr. Todd? Because as far as I know, the two of yeh said nothing to each other! You were giving him his shave, and then yeh started to rant and scream like a banshee! Just like that! Christ, I need a chair!"

_6_

The woman plopped into the barbering seat and scratched clumps of gingery, discarded hair from the armrests. "I thought yeh was goin' to drop dead, I did! What the bloody hell were you looking at?"

_6 _

She followed his direct gaze, brow furrowed, a more considerate tone replacing her braying hollers. "What _are_ yeh lookin' at?"

He spoke, disregarding her concerns and inquiries altogether. His words rattled himself more than the baker, and sent icy fingers trailing up his spine, to his heart, where it strangled the pulsing beat from his chest. The razor shook and clattered to the floor.

"She's going to die, Mrs. Lovett. Before the week is out, in six days, my daughter is going to die."

**Fogg's Asylum**

"A good month's past by, sir," Fogg commented as he stalked down the hallways, peeking through the bars that separated solace and misery "and the little birdie has shown no progress."

The Beadle, glued to his side as they paced down the shrieking cells, swallowed his fear and nodded. "The Judge wishes to offer her a chance at leaving this.._.place_." The word tasted bitter and pungent and trudged past his teeth, demanding to be caked with a more fitting sound._ Nightmare_ seemed a fitting replacement.

There was a touch of alarm in Fogg's sunken eyes, a gleam in those buried, black pits that sparkled like sunken jewels embedded in his brow. "No, sir, I'd suggest you leave the child here." The glimmer sparked a fire, a greedy, hungry blaze that ached to be nourished. The Beadle had seen many a man with that same unrefined glare, a predator yearning to tear his prey into bits, to run their blood over his lips.

It was the hungry glare that the Judge had given Lucy Barker before he had lured her in and indulged in the long since forbidden sweetness of her body...

and then the famished stare had turned to her daughter...

_No._

_Christ, _the Beadle's brain swarmed_, you, the Judge, and mental--mental putting it bluntly!-- psychopath? Golly, gee! Look at all that guilt, Beadle Bamford! Sure your head may have been crowded before, but wait till the blame begins to really settle! You'll be housed with the lunatics in a week!_

_Life well lived, eh?_

"Shut up," the Beadle snarled, and dug a clenched fist into his eye-socket.

"Pardon, sir?" Fogg inquired with a sideways glance. "Did you just tell yourself to shut up?"

The Beadle's words came out crumpled. "Of course not! I-I-I have n-n-ever heard of such--"

"I do insist we look into this. Many of my children are delusional, thought to be controlled by the unholy Devil himself--God save the mark!" The keeper raised a lanky finger through the darkness. It looked like a milky bone in the light of shimmering torches. "Down that way is where we strap the patients in the Chair, and we spin them around and around. I'd say a hundred revolutions do the trick, until they vomit the Devil right out of 'em." He chuckled and wheezed. "But of course they are contaminated once again within hours, and then it is off to their bedchambers...if not the deadhouse." Turning to Bamford, Fogg smirked, lips like coiling wires, and said, "Perhaps it would be best to offer you such treatment whilst you are here." Nearly as slimy as the coated asylum walls, Fogg's voice was slick and smooth, almost coaxing.

The Beadle's feminine gasp was that of disgust, a sound of a woman grasping notice of a rat scurrying across her kitchen floor, a girl reeling in shock as her parents shared an intimate kiss right before her nose. "Don't be _revolting_!"

Even Fogg could not contain himself. For the remainder of the expedition to the female restriction cells, the asylum keeper was impaired with high-pitched giggles that resonated through the thin air--a sound that the truly mad children decided to imitate with wild blows to their breasts. After all, they did as _father _did. "Pardon me, sir," Fogg snorted, "just having me some fun."

Under his breath, the Beadle hissed, "Yes, let us all have fun while the mad _govern_ the mad." His plump knuckles strained and released, he could feel the blood whistling through his arm to his fingers.

The comment drifted in the air and vanished, sounds of uproarious shrieks and cries stifling it. But Fogg seemed to have heard the sound with just as much clarity as if the words had been spoken in a silently praying church. He wore an expression of common disdain; eyes narrowed to peering cracks, lips grinding together, cheeks thinning into a sour frown. He looked like a child who had died displeased and forever had the pout drawn on his face.

"I keep the children secluded in accordance to their hair color. Your little birdie has been housed with the blondes, just down there." He added, abrupt to change subject.

"So you mean to say," Bamford dared speak, even when his conscience stipulated he shove his voice into his stomach, "that the girl has not been locked with those of her own illness, but of her _hair color_?"

The look Mr. Fogg cast the Beadle as he fidgeted with a ring of rusty, iron keys was of dismay. There was a miscommunication between the two, a conception that the portly man had obviously never understood. "We use the children's hair for wigs, sir." The padlock clicked after it swallowed the key. "Make's quite the profit, it does. "

A flock of women were directly in front of the doorway's path. It did not take a word to persuade them to move, simply their father's face sent them crashing against each other, screaming, growling like gutter dogs, weeping like the rejected children of God, slamming flat against slippery, smutty cell walls. Only the dead refused to move, and their bodies lay prone to the solid floor, their faces masked with a veil of stone.

The Beadle's eyes scanned the hoard of reeking bodies as Fogg displayed the children, and Bamford's gaze dropped with his thumping heart as he discerned a tiny girl crumpled in the corner, her legs shriveled and prodding out from her thin, stump of a stomach. A curtain of ocher locks swept in front of veiled eyes, and brushed against the grey, mud-specked restrains of a straightjacket. He seemed to bleed off a few years while he jolted towards the child in a burst of youthful drive.

The child's jaw was a stub in his palm. Bamford lifted her head up, brushed a few strands that had matted to her skin, and crouched to carve out the familiarity of the girl, to spark a connection that he knew to already be there. But to discern the girl's features, he had to work. He had to dig away the grime with his eyes, strain himself to beckon the image of the Judge's ward, fit the pieces of his memoires with the deformed face of this forsworn child.

"Johanna," the Beadle said, and he realized that it had been the first time he had ever spoken her name.

Two dead, darkened eyes. A dead voice that shunned sound. The remnants of a dead soul in her pale, thin face; this is what greeted his stares. This is what he and his master had done. They both had hated, and with that hate they had slaughtered an innocent.

A little birdie, now the children's tiny skeleton.

"God, child," he sputtered, but failed to find any other words.

The tiny skeleton shivered, the air of the Beadle's breath like wind to her twiggy arms. She did not speak, her throat swelled and puckered and closed.

"Come, now," he demanded in a more steady voice, "the Judge awaits just outside. He will take you from here...all of this will be a long forgotten memory..." He could see her head twitch and jerk side to side. She was shaking her head, _no_.

"Turpin will be a good husband, take my word for it. He loves you, child, and has gone mad himself with the idea of you locked in this prison. He extends his mercy and I suggest that you except such a generous offer. " The girl's hand was merely slick bone in his grip. Dead hands. "Come, Johanna."

"No."

The thin voice pervaded and stabbed his ears. Johanna's fragile hand tugged and slipped from his clutch, falling to the floor and curling like an insect.

"I don't think you are understanding me, girl," the Beadle tried, words coated with a fiery heat. "Your guardian--and fiancée, might I remind you--has offered you your freedom. Considering the circumstances--"

"I don't care about the circumstances anymore," Johanna rasped, head rolling back against the wall. Her feathery eyes flapped closed, red-rimmed, puffy, blinding her to the world she no longer wished to reach. "Leave me here, Mr. Bamford. You never cared for me anyway..." Small droplets of heartbreak moistened her voice, as if his scorn for her over the years had indeed burnt a hole in her fragile mind.

A pit of remorse made his stomach sick. Perhaps he should have allowed Fogg to strap him in the chair and spin, spin, spin, spin him around. Around and around until it was not the devil he purged, but the guilt. Vomit the guilt so it won't drive you mad.

His mind was washed clean of fresh response. The notion of reporting the girl's rejection to Turpin was a nightmare, too brutal a possibility to be considered or indulged. He rattled a desperate response. "You'll die if you stay here, Johanna. Maybe not today, nor tomorrow, but I am certain that you won't survive the week. You're only a child."

Her colorless gaze brushed her tightly strapped arms. Blotches of dry blood crusted the fabric above her twisted elbow. "You didn't seem to think me a child those nights that you visited me, sir," the voice turned bitter and acidic, the sole voice of hatred. It was strange how a girl, with such little life left, could conjure up the will to refuse freedom itself. As if leaving would be the death sentence rather than a pardon. As if she waited for something, but embraced nothing."You didn't seem to think me a child when you brought me here, had my arms tied up." Her words began to drown in tears. "You didn't think me a child then, and I don't understand why you think me one now."

The Beadle had not realized his own panic until he heard the desperate ring of his voice. "I won't touch you again, girl. You have my word as an official of the law, and I beg you, I beseech you," his greasy, plump hands cupped her bound shoulders, "return to your home. Turpin grows sick without you, he hangs every man on the stand, I have not seen a case to govern because the town is struck with fear. Return home, or you'll soon die."

Sudden anger burst from her throat, the words echoed around the groaning patients, and encircled the Beadle, spinning in his ears, condemning him. "Then let me die!"

He bobbed his head side to side, thoughts swimming in his flooded brain. Nothing made sense anymore.

Johanna lowered her voice, either from control or fatigue, and breathed the remaining words with airy anguish. Talking seemed to pain her. "It's obvious my father will not come for me," her glare was jagged, accusing, "and I certainly won't leave with_ you_. So let me die..."

Shaking his head, blabbering pleas, shooting desperate glances towards the asylum window, outside where the Judge awaited his ward's return; this was all the Beadle could do. He could not reason with her, he could not convince her, heaving a boulder uphill would have been easier a task. She was as stubborn as her mother had been, only this Barker would not be swayed. Quite perplexing, it was, how a child so like her mother was also so utterly different.

And it was then that Beadle Bamford knew that Johanna Barker would not be convinced, that she had chosen death long ago rather than marriage to a Judge, to villainous vulture. If only half of London men had this girl's steely resolution. She shamed nearly everyone who hadn't.

He stood erect, brushed the crumbly film of dirt from his hands, and rasped, "I'll tell the master that you have refused."

"Do that, sir. I want you to do that," Johanna sighed, and her eyes shuttered closed.

For a spit second, the Beadle had thought she was dead. "You will not come?" he ventured, knowing very well what her intentions were, but reassuring himself that she was still alive.

Those haunting, shadowed, dark orbs opened, as dark as London's cloudy eve, and fastened on him. "Go away, sir," she demanded, but the sound was not harsh. "I wouldn't want you to be infected."

Without another word--only a flick of his cane and the swirl of his coat--Bamford fled the iron madhouse, where insanity and plague were one in the same, where Death sat by the foot of each child's bed and lulled them to sleep with sweet promises of a better place, a loving guardian, a world of carpeted fields and fragrant scents, a world for the children to call their own, a world for the children to live and forget. Only the forgotten wished to forget.

Even though the Judge immediately took note of his ward's absence when the Beadle clambered into the coach, he still questioned his partner of her whereabouts. "Where is Johanna?" he asked. "Why is she not with you?"

Grasping at his midsection, gulping down breaths after his flight through the asylum and down its stone steps, Bamford gasped, "She refuses, my lord."

There was a brief smack of surprise across the Judge's refined face, but he made use of his tone to conceal it. "I thought such. Fear not, Beadle, we will have Johanna begging to return to me soon enough. I should think two months in that place would drive even a grown male to the noose, would it not?"

The Beadle gnawed an upper lip, neglecting to mention that the child had not even a full week's life left within her, save two months. He would not say anything; it was the girl's wish to die there anyway...

"Once we return, Beadle, pack your things. I would like to take a swift retreat to Birmingham for two weeks or so. I've grown quite disgusted of this town," he shot a glance towards the sky of sheeted smog, "...and I wish to erase my ward's criminal records before the wedding. I shan't marry a girl with marked history." He snorted and scratched at his coarse stubble. "Yes, a short retreat...will do nicely."

After the slamming the coach door shut, the Beadle grumbled, "Of course, sir," and settled back, observing the walking shadows of nightly strollers.

If only the Beadle had caught notice of the shadow that had pursued the coach to the asylum, the shadow that had awaited the Beadle to walk inside from a concealed corner with hushed breath, the shadow that had overheard each of the Judge's plans that he had declared after his right-hand man had spoken of the dying girl's refusal. Perhaps the Beadle would have realized that the shadow had been Anthony Hope, he might have realized that he had not only revealed Johanna's imprisonment in the madhouse, but Turpin's agreements concerning their retreat to Birmingham.

But neither the Beadle nor the Judge caught notice of the shadow behind their carriage, and so galloped off into the night without another thought of the girl, and certainly not an inkling of the nearby Anthony Hope.

The shadow sent a loving glance towards the asylum's windows, sang a soft tune he had heard his heart hum when his eyes had first set on Johanna, and receded into the night where he would hunt his only friend in London and implore his assistance--Sweeney Todd. Mr. Todd would know what to do and together they would find a way to rescue his Johanna.

"Don't let go, beloved," he called over his shoulder, to the stone and iron house of insanity, where he cringed at the idea of such a delicate creature chained with frothing, groaning lunatics. "Wait for me."

And long after the boy had departed into the dark streets of London night, Johanna lay inside her cell, too weak to blink, too exhausted to think, but a faint smile playing on her listless lips at the sounds of Anthony's sweet serenade, swirling around in her ears, pacifying her into an hour's sleep.

She dreamt of freedom.

And then she awoke.

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	40. Chapter 40

**Chapter 40**

**186 Fleet Street**

Mr. Sweeney Todd had left home, and returned within four days of nonstop search.

At first, before he had given the search a portion of true thought, he had not the intention of leaving home for days on end. He actually had assumed he would return home each night for rest—though he knew such would be unproductive—and then leave again the next day. But when he stepped out into the cold, gnawing air, when he gazed upon the tranquil families passing by with untouchable, happy smiles, Sweeney Todd knew he would not return home until his daughter was safe in his arms. Before the six days came to pass and her blood was shed at the hands of an unknown…at his own hands.

The search was frantic, the search was almost sloppy; tearing through alleyways, battling currents of citizens, scrounging for any information he could grasp. Never sleeping, never eating, only wandering, passing every drunkard, shaking free of every bold prostitute and brazen street beggar.

He had grasped numerous beggar children's chins—too many to count. He had gazed into their cloudy eyes and then rejected them when he realized that not one dirt-caked child, clad in muddy rags, was his own. Almost afraid to look, the man had removed the hats of homeless maidens, silent to their inquiries, and retreated after a glimpse at their weary faces.

Each hour spent wandering the streets of London did not bear fruit; each minute wasted was discarded like the dozing children in the sewage trenches. His daughter was a figment of thought that retracted each time he reached for it. Just like her mother.

Mrs. Lovett had begged him—had beseeched him with her deep-shaded eyes and grasped his sagging shoulders—"No, Mr. Todd. Yeh must stay 'ere, where you're safe. Your girl will be fine; she's made it this long." Her tears had sprouted and nearly flown. "Please, Mr. T, I had to live fifteen years without yeh. Would yeh make me wait any longer than I already 'ave?"

His returning stare was hard and conflicted: an inquisitive frown on his lips as blackness swept across his eyes, a brewing storm of emotions. One single question that had pierced his mind, like a hot iron, had finally bludgeoned the burning question out of him. He said, "If Lucy were alive, Mrs. Lovett, and I returned to London in search of her, you wouldn't have told me she lived, would you?"

And then, with a sharp glance at her colorless, torn shoes, she replied, "Probably not."

He had left without another word, bound for nowhere; but even nowhere seemed to hold more promise than 186 Fleet Street.

Four days and Fate had finally worn him through; had seized him, squeezed him dry of strength, and shoved him homeward.

But after those four days of worrisome search, he summoned his own sort of solution—one last desperate resort. Surely he would feel his daughter die; she was as much a part of him as his mind and spirit, even though both had been mangled probably beyond repair. So when his soul ripped in two, on the impending sixth day of the week, when he felt himself shudder as Johanna drew her last breath somewhere out in the stone prison of a Judge's grip, he would die, too. Either his own body would crumple upon feeling his daughter slip away with Death, or he would take his shining, deceitful razor and plunge it into his throat, if only to feel the pain he had inflicted on so many others during his blind fits of rage. Anywhere would suffice; any room or alleyway or ditch would be a befitting grave.

There was nothing more to it.

The sight of his home brought only a sigh to his lips as Todd sulked forward, uncertain of his reasoning for returning to a building that only housed ghosts. Ghosts and demons.

Once, long ago, during a breath of golden beauty and content, he had felt a foreign elation brew in his mind at the sight of 186 Fleet Street, his mind already embracing the angels that awaited him inside. There was nothing left now; life was as barren as a wall without pictures or paint, and only dust.

And when he first gazed upon his home after those excruciating days of search, he could brush his gaze over the large window and blink away the tears that formed in his chest and no longer in his eyes, but he could not embrace the angels that awaited him. They had long since gone away.

Body sagging and limp like a walking corpse, Todd maneuvered through the crowds of customers during Mrs. Lovett's prospering lunch hour. The sea of faces either nodded at him or stared right through him, like he was more of a ghost than a man. He knew them to be right.

Mrs. Lovett caught a quick peek at him after pouring a beverage to a stout guest. There was a teary look in her drained face, and she blanched at the sight of him. The woman opened her mouth to shout something towards him, but her sound was lost to the swelling waves of conversation around them. By her side, Toby, eyed the barber in shock, most likely surprised that his 'friend' had returned home alive. His fragile, young hand quivered and ripples of gin pitter-pattered onto the floor.

He turned from her, continued to the stairs, ascended, and hid away in his shop, a hoard of unwanted memories chaining him to the darkness of the room like a prisoner of the past. That same little, phantom child reached in his mind, reeking of Death, her eyes flaunting horrors that froze a grown man's blood. He had flipped the shop's sign to _closed_, sunk into his barber chair, and observed the falling gray of London's skies, until it was a coat of black that London wore, and the only gray visible was the streak of shock that tangled in his tousled mane.

It had all been his fault, ever since the beginning. If he had shielded his girls away from the world, then greedy eyes would not have coveted their rare beauty; if he had been more aware of the lurking evil in England's streets, creeping like a goddamned sickness, then he would have been more precautionary; if he had kept his heart sealed away from _her_ love—the love that was eating chunks of life from him like the hungry parasite it was—then the both of them would not be dying now.

He wallowed in a moment's peace—at least as peaceful as the present permitted.

"Mr. T," the baker called through the shop door, hours later. Her voice was almost inaudible through the thick, distorted glass, it swallowed her sound. But he managed to discern her few words when she spoke again. "Mr. T, there's someone to see yeh."

There were blisters in his throat, blisters and swollen constrictions, so he could barely mutter, "Come in," before swallowing thickly and collapsing backward into the seat. He sighed through his nostrils; his chest burned and ached like he had swallowed sawdust.

The woman paced to the front of his seat after swinging the shop door open, the handle clattered on the wall and the bells screamed in faithful responce. She knelt before him, slipped her cool palms onto his enflamed cheeks. "My dear," she sighed. "What 'ave yeh done to yourself?" For once, her voice was not irritating.

A cracked, rasped sound crawled from his lips, and after that, he no longer tried speaking.

"Relax, love," she whispered, soothing a wire of hair from his eyes, "Yeh need your strength. Where've yeh been?"

Though he did try, her name still burned his tongue and sliced the same razor through his heart. "J-J-Jo-Johann-Johanna…"

There were tears welling in her large, evocative eyes. But she did well in withholding them, no doubt accustomed to doing so. "I shouldn't 'ave let yeh go…God knows you'll kill yourself out on those streets."

His ears purged the sound of her voice. Tired, sleepless eyes inched into hers, and then sought out London's skies as if in search of comfort; an oasis of blue in an ocean of cloud.

Silence seemed the best consolation until the woman spoke. "Mr. Todd, the sailor's been searchin' for yeh ever since yeh left. Says 'e needs to speak with yeh," the baker informed him. "I told 'im to stay 'ere until yeh returned, and last I saw of 'im, he was walking around 'ere waiting for yeh to come home." She severed her volume in half. "He knows where your girl is."

The barber's eyes flew open, but uncertainty halted his gaze. "He knows…how can he? She…I could not—" the man could barely cling to control, his body shook, his voice rose, shouts and sobs swelled in his puffy, stinging throat.

"Hush, love," she whispered, easing him back into the seat, "He'll be back in a tick; he always comes right on back. Shop's closed so no one will 'ear of this."

"No," he breathed, squirming forward, "let me go find him…I need to know."

She shook her head and propped both palms on her bony hips. "You're determined to get yourself killed, ain't yeh?"

"If I can't have her back," he muttered, wobbling to his feet and limping to the door, "then I'm already dead."

"Not if I kill yeh first," she joked, but the smile tilted into a pointed grimace. "Please, dear, sit back down."

"You know nothing of parenting, Lovett," he hissed, his hands shaking and reaching towards his pocketed weapon. "You think that I should simply sit down and relax when I can feel my daughter die. I _feel_ it!"

"Yeh mean to say that I know nothing of parenting?" she snapped right back at him, the humor lost somewhere in the approaching darkness of her tone.

"I mean to say that you've not spoken a fuckin' word about mothering, other than that bastard orphan below! I haven't heard anythin' from you that tells me you know how to bloody parent, so don't you dare tell me—!"

"Then hear this!" she cried. "I had a child, a li'l girl, just like yours!"

He opened his mouth, most likely to reply. But not even he was sure if that was his intention.

"No, Todd, I wasn't' sterile like yeh and your nit of a wife thought. Perhaps if yeh 'ad given a damn about someone other than yourself and your god-forsaken revenge scheme—the revenge that travels as fast as a piece of shit in the sewer—I would 'ave told yeh that!" She gave a sharp, bark of a laugh. "Revenge! 'as revenge gotten your daughter back, Mr. T? Or shall we wait for 'er to receive the same fate as your wife; hung from 'er neck and stuffed into a pit in the ground?"

He advanced on her and his arms rose to spring towards her neck. Then, with a fleeting look at his hands, curled in murderous fury, he lowered his arms and tucked his fingers into fists. He had not even touched her, and to ensure that he did not, he backed away from her a considerable four feet. "I didn't know you had a child," he muttered, "and my Johanna is not going to meet Lucy's fate…she's..." something died in his eyes, and a furious spark revived it, "Just stop talking, woman. Right now. Before I…" He could not think of what to say next, so he let the threat hang over their heads.

A bitter, old woman replaced the vivacious baker as she stalked to the shop window, tight–lipped, scorning the world with harsh, odious eyes. She had pushed past him like a cold breeze. "She died in August. Hot as hell, it was. After my husband's death...after you'd been taken. Little Anna; she was all I had left to keep the memory of Albert. And I kept at the shop only because I had promised Albert I would when he was dying of the gout...Had to raise her all on my own, with a business bound for hell, and less and less customers comin' 'cause they thought I'd been whoring around."

She jabbed a finger towards the street. The window was ice against her rough skin. "So when_ that_ day came, the day that I'd been so busy with my ridiculous shop, I didn't see my girl skip into the road, singin' and dancin' as people passed 'er by. I didn't see her tiny body trampled by the horses of the oncoming carriage, and I _certainly_ didn't see the wheels crush 'er bones and spill all 'er blood. But I heard the screams, oh yes I did. And when I came rushin' out into the road, that road yonder, where your own daughter was bleedin' and bruised," she trembled at the thought, "it was too late. Every bone in 'er tiny body, broken, 'er face was mashed together until I couldn't see those beautiful brown eyes through all that skin and blood. I simply sat there, holdin' her hand, feelin' it grow cold and limp. I'd never dreamed a little body could carry so much blood." A cry itched in her throat. "_So_ much blood…'

Sweeney blinked a few times, kept his mouth screwed shut, and fastened his eyes onto the woman's pink, sweaty, face. This woman might have gone mad, insane beyond any hopes of return, but what decent parent would be right-minded after losing their innocent child? How could he dare approach her when this angry outburst was her parental right?

Anger seemed to direct her thoughts back on track. "And then yeh came by, Mr. Todd," she approached him, hissing into his face with an ugly frown. There were tears in her eyes. "Yeh came by, demandin' I better my business, and even though it killed me, I did it because I lo—" She brushed the words away. "Yeh expected me to just perfect my work, just to lure your own customers in. I know yeh did! Work, work, work as I think of my Anna, _dyin', dyin'_, _dyin'_ in that goddamn road! Did yeh ever stop to think of that, Mr._ Barker_? Did yeh ever wonder if this silly, worthless _stooge_ could 'ave been a parent as well?! A parent whose lost her own piece of heaven to this fuckin' miserable town?!"

Her hand seized a silver razor, and she dangled it before his eyes until her knuckles turned a ghostly white. "Does this kiss yeh at night and hug yeh when yeh need comfort?!" She threw it to the ground, let the metallic cling echo through the room and bounce off the window. She howled, "Does that wretched thing ever say _I love yeh_!?"

She continued to scream at him, even when he brought his arms around her shoulders and brought her head into his chest. The movement was involuntary, like a natural impulse of the mind, and the woman's screaming did eventually falter and fade after she sobbed dry tears onto his shoulder. For a moment, he cursed the protective, fathering urge that could not withstand a female in tears. His own personal curse, granted by the all-loving God himself…

Todd noted to give God warm appreciation when he was dead; a nice, cheery 'Thanks, God! What a pal _you _are!'…_That_ and a few other choice words.

And as quick as the instinct to hold the woman had sparked in his conscience was as quick as it had died. He shot away from her, but wore an expression-devoid face. "I'm sorry," his voice was low, yet she knew him to be true. There was nothing more he could say. Perhaps extra words would have stripped his apology of meaning.

"No, love," she sniveled, wiping at her nose with her lacy sleeve, "_I'm_ sorry. Yeh know I'm not one to lose my temper…"

"You have the right."

She laughed softly and shook her head, blinking back moisture. Russet curls tumbled over her brow.

"Mr. Todd!" The cry from the door, and the baker jumped while the barber's heart stumbled.

Sweeney glanced towards the young sailor, fresh sweat dripping down his youthful cheeks, his jacket loose and hanging in disarray.

Like the sailor had been a cold hand that wrestled him into reality, Todd fought for composure, restraining the hungry impulse to grasp the boy by his jacket and jostle the truth out of him.

"Mr. Todd! Sir, where've you been! Days—gone! And God only knows—"

Predator on prey, Sweeney pounced towards the sailor and seized his shoulders. Frantic, dipping into the boy's anxieties with his brute touch, Todd began to shout. "The girl, Anthony! Where is Johanna?"

The sailor had paused for only for a second—enough time to detect the brushing of wind against the slick glass window, or the faint, hearty laughter of strolling men.

Todd shook him once, somehow managing to shake the answer out of him like a child rattling a jar of candy. Except what Sweeney Todd managed to grasp was more precious than candy, and possessed the raw power to crash his world upon his head and shatter his skull in two, to crack his stone and ice heart, to send his bleeding soul into the corner of his mind, wrinkle, and writhe in absolute _hell_.

"She's in an asylum, sir. Fogg's asylum: A fortress of madmen…Judge Turpin and his Beadle have both gone on a retreat to Birmingham; said they were to erase Johanna's record of some sort. It could be that they wish to remove her record of hospitalization, but I've yet to understand why the record would be transported to Birmingham." He rubbed his sore eyes with his forefingers. "None of this is making sense."

Todd's mind worked and fumed, overwhelming him with thoughts. The Judge and Beadle had left. But when were they to return? How could he have his revenge if he had to wait for the two bastards to come back?

Anthony Hope's brows drew together and a thin film glistened in his eye. "Can you even think of it, Mr. Todd? Sweet, sweet Johanna, stowed away with those ravenous lunatics? Without air, without a single source of solace, without—"

"A madhouse." It had been a mere whisper, but the hissed fury in the barber's words stifled Anthony's rants in an instant.

The boy took a series of small steps back. "Yes, sir, Fogg's asylum…"

"A madhouse…_he_ locked _my_ Johanna in a _madhouse_?"

"_Your_ Johanna?" Anthony gazed hard at the floor, as if trying to see the bake house through the wooden planks, then glimpsed at Mr. Todd. "Sir, I'm afraid I do not understand."

Snapping to life, Todd began to pace, each step, Lovett remembered, drawing a new epiphany to mind. "You're going to get her tonight, son. Bring her here."

"But I told you, sir, the building is a—"

"A fortress," Todd concluded for him, still striding from the vanity to the shattered mirror in the corner. "Though I've yet to hear of a fortress without an entrance." A cracked shard of glass cut his torso in two within the jagged reflection.

"There's only one, Mr. Todd, and I promise you, they won't grant me access."

"They will, and I am going to tell you how," Todd assured him, keeping his voice calm and centered. Behind his words, Mrs. Lovett noted the inclining pitch, the answers he shot out like steel bullets. No doubt the image that Anthony had stirred of his little daughter bound and forgotten in an asylum cell did nothing to abate his unrest.

"Tell me, Mr. Todd! Lord, _tell_ me!"

Mrs. Lovett blinked once and there the barber was, looming in front of the sailor, face set in a drawn brow and a smirking glint to his eye. "You shall feign a wigmaker's apprentice. Tell the keeper that you wish to see the blondes for selection. They will let you in, and when they do, you'll take the girl." The following words, words he never imagined himself to ever say, were softer, gentler. "Bring her back here."

A smile crept to his youthful face, and Anthony seized his companion's stiff hand, clasping it close. "Yes, Mr. Todd, Lord help us." The gentle voice fell into a dark murmur. The blood drained from his once blushing cheeks. "I…I have a gun in my satchel, sir. I purchased it a day or so ago when I was wandering the streets." His words were moist then dry as he toyed with the weapon's barrel. "It's a Derringer pistol. I-I-If I _am_ required to use it…"

"Then you'll use it. You will sink a bullet into the world itself, Anthony. Do it for her. For Johanna." The last word brought an invisible hand to his chest and pinched the air from him, but his shaky, backward falter was indeed visible.

The boy looked from the window, to the barber, to his own hands as if to imagine them coated with another man's warm, ruby blood. "I don't know," his voice quivered, like he was going to cry, "I don't know if I could kill another man…" Ice coated his gaze, freezing his tears before they could spill, crystallizing his perspiring brow, and cooling his voice to a frozen whisper. "But a _man_ would not have put Johanna in that asylum. I couldn't kill a_ man_, but I can kill a _monster_. I will kill them with their own hate." Clearing his throat, he shivered and hugged his coat closer to his arms. "Thank you, Mr. Todd. Good God, I wouldn't know what to have done without you."

It seemed Mr. Todd had tried to smile; his lips twitched upward, his eyes squinted into half-moons. But the result was his usual, brooding frown, forever etched onto his face. "Go, Anthony. Thank me when she's home."

A breeze whistled through the door. Anthony shivered again, turned towards it, and faced the bitter, autumn wind dead on. He trudged from the shop, trying to force a spring to his strides, and failing as his own weight dragged upon the floor. The faint hush of his parting words, perhaps a goodbye, perhaps a prayer to the Lord, was carried along with the wind, fading into the air. Never to be heard.

There was a silence then and there. Sweeney did not speak, Mrs. Lovett did not speak, but their eyes glinted accusation after accusation at one, and horror after terrifying horror to the other.

Then, with a newfound, confident breath, Mrs. Lovett was the one to summon life from the dead still. Like planting a seed and receiving a garden. "We've done wrong, Sweeney Todd."

He looked at her, maybe the third time he had actually done so since his arrival, the third time he had looked at the woman and seen a soul rather than an accomplice. "What d'ya mean?" he inquired, and cursed his own stupidity for asking a question of which the answer had haunted him each night.

"You've killed, and I helped yeh. That's what I mean. I helped yeh—how did yeh say it?—sink a bullet into the world. Why? Because I loved yeh too much to say no." She laughed, perhaps at her own ignorance—or at her sudden, impulsive confession. "My worst enemy is the man I've loved the most. And for the first time, Mr. Todd, I'm seein' yeh and I'm seein' me." Her eyes frowned. "You've lost a daughter, I've lost a daughter. We both look outside and see smoke. Smoke and ashes. Yeh would think that we 'ave more in common than we would like to admit." Hands writhing in each other's nervous clutch, a dark shade veiling her face like an ancient mourner, the woman closed the space between them with a quick step. "But there's one thing that makes us completely different."

Throat dry, Sweeney licked his lips and finally croaked, "And that is?"

"My daughter is dead, Mr. T. She's been dead for years now. There ain't no goin' back and chagin' that. If I could, yeh know I bloody well would. I'd be in me shop and I would 'ave kept an extra eye out for my Anna. I'd 'ave 'eld her each night and told 'er 'ow she brought me light." The woman snaked her fingers to the barber's shoulder, resting there. "Well, my daughter is dead," she said, somewhat composed, "and I suppose yeh could say I've accepted that. But, no parent in the world should live to see their baby lowered into the ground."

"Mrs. Lovett—"

"But your daughter _is_ alive, Mr. Todd! Not dead; _alive_! Don't take this chance to sit back and let another man rescue 'er! Please, Mr. T, see the opportunity that you have killed for—that I _would_ kill for—and go. Bring her back, Mr. T, or the memory of 'er true father will be nothing _but_ a memory."

"You don't know what you ask of me," he denied, struggling against his stone body for movement. He needed to be away from this woman. He needed to go, to hide. Warmth was stirring in his tossing stomach in flips and turns, and he did not like it.

"I ask nothin' more than what you've wanted! Days, you've searched, and now that yeh know where Johanna is, yeh can do somethin' 'bout it. Don't be like me; don't forget about your own child. 'Cause if yeh do, you'll regret it till your dying day. And watching you go to waste without her is like watching my daughter die over and over again."

He shook his head, full droplets of shimmering tears plummeting from his lids. He greeted them with a greedy sleeve and gruff denials. "No, Lovett. I cannot…I love her with all of my heart—no, my entire mind and body—but I could never be the man I once was. It'll kill her not to have _him_ back."

With a frown, her teeth ripping at her lip, the woman blinked tears from her vision and directed the barber to the large window, golden beams prodding through the bumpy blanket of clouds, reaching towards the barren earth. "And _he_ will be back, Mr. Todd. I swear to yeh, when your eyes meet and yeh see that li'l girl, the girl that gave yeh light, that man will spring to life. Benjamin hasn't died; he's alive, waiting…"

"My little dove," he whispered, staring hard into space, the strain in his gaze soothed by a single ray of light that brushed against his dusty, shop floor.

"Go with the boy," Lovett whispered in his ear. "Bring her home _tonight_."

His eyes gleamed, and this time, it was not a gleam of rage, or vengeance, or blood thirst. It was a gleam of pure, utter _love_, the love had been wounded by their parting and bled in forlorn solitude, but had never forsaken him. The love was rising, nourished and healthy. He was returning to life, the same man that had tucked Johanna into bed, consoled her when she was frightened or heartbroken. And now, she needed him. His daughter—the beating heart next to his own, the breathing that coincided with his—alive! The same country, the same city, nearly the same_ street_ as him! And he had done nothing when, almost a year ago, he was prepared to battle overseas to reclaim her from the mid-Atlantic.

The truth had blossomed like the streak of blue in the London sky.

Revenge was _nothing_ compared to a father's love for his child.

Barker flourished in his blood. He felt refreshed, renewed, and as alive as he had been when staring into his girl's admiring, innocent eyes.

Yes, he had never stopped loving her, but now it was time to _be_ the father, and not _play_ the father.

Now was the time for action.

"Thank you," he whispered at the baker, giving her shoulder's a light squeeze before bounding from the shop. He was a breeze brushing down the steps, and then a whirlwind tearing through the road—the road where his daughter had once lain in a pool of her own blood. He stormed past the London citizens, a current of energy through the absent-minded.

He sought out a sailor in a navy-blue coat with downy hair brushing his limp shoulders, and when he had found him, he shouted the boy's name like a lunatic himself. The boy turned and grappled a small grin.

"Mr. Todd?" he inquired. His once gloomy face raised an inch higher. "Is there something I can help you with?"

"You can start by leading me to this asylum…Stopping by your room and cladding yourself in something more fitting for a working apprentice would do, too," Todd remarked, using his chin to indicate the road ahead.

Anthony's eyes widened and his head leveled to an awkward tilt. "You mean to say that you are coming with me?"

"Yes, boy, you catch on quickly," the barber said as he marched forward.

Struggling to keep the pace, Anthony quickly interjected. "But, Mr. Todd! How in the world will you get into the asylum? You have designed only a plan for me!"

Frustrated, the barber turned to glower at him, and his sturdy stride jostled a man aside after he stomped forward.

Now, fighting fits of laughter, Anthony's mind shot to their brief visit to Liberia where Mr. Todd had nearly killed a native after flaunting at least three bottles of ambergris in Todd's face.

"Tell me, boy, what exactly did I say we set you up as?"

"Why, a wigmaker's apprentice, sir!"

"Good, now is it common for an apprentice to have a _master_, Anthony?"

The panting sailor stared at him in awed silence, a stupid, broad smile on his lips. "Yes, Mr. Todd. I believe it is very common."

The two shared a sudden moment of impenetrable silence, both staring into the other's face with fresh respect. Within those few seconds, a different man had been carved out of the barber and sailor, a side that was foreign to both of them.

After a brief nod of his head, Anthony turned to face the stream of oncoming citizens.

Sweeney Todd battled the current by his side.

**The moment that you readers have all been awaiting—whether you know it or not—is approaching! Review and I'll work on the next chapter as soon as I can! Thanks, all!**


	41. Chapter 41

**Chapter 41**

**Fogg's Asylum**

Death, the last thing Sweeney Todd imagined he would see, and the first thing he smelled when he and Anthony Hope approached the stone steps of Fogg's asylum. It was an odd smell, like a mixture of perspiring bodies, decaying skin, human wastes, and an indescribable aroma that wavered between horror and despair. You could smell emotions here; they ran nearly as tangible as insanity.

Todd greeted the foul stench like an old acquaintance, like someone he had known and long hoped to forget. To his side, Anthony pressed a sleeve to his mouth and coughed, eyes watery and red.

"It smells like Hell, Mr. Todd," Anthony croaked, his mouth devoid of moisture.

Grunting something unintelligible, Sweeney peered around the way, assuring himself that they were alone in the street. Witnesses would only irk him. And he had enough goddamn things to deal with. "You have that gun in your satchel?" he asked with a pointed look to his eyes.

Anthony, for the fifth time, struggled with the leather strap of his bag and finally wrestled it open. He fingered the bag's contents until his thumb rested on the cool barrel of the Derringer pistol. "Yes, sir. It's right here."

"Straighten your jacket. You look as if you were running."

"We _were_ running, Mr. Todd."

"Yes, and you_ look_ it. Do we want that?"

Anthony fumbled with his bowtie and shrugged his narrow shoulders into the stiff folding of the coat, the very one he had blindly pulled from his trunk after a four-second snatch and grab in his rented room. He pulled the lapels closer together, smoothed the creases from its coffee-colored collar. "Better?" he asked, a venomous sting to his words.

Nothing implanted that warm, happy feeling in the barber's stomach than a rebellious adolescent. _Goddamn it. _

"Son," Todd added, "don't shiver."

In a hysterical cry, Anthony burst out, "How can you tell me such when we are standing before a mental asylum?"

A sharp look about him and the barber was suddenly beside Anthony, frowning, grasping the boy's jacket--hands, skeletal and calloused. "Shut up and look at me!" he snapped, pulling the boy closer by his elbow. "Just tell yourself you are goin' to survive this...Breathe in and say it."

With an incredulous frown, pulling his arm away from his accomplice, Anthony murmured, "How can _Johanna_ have survived this?"

That was not the anticipated response. Todd was suddenly compelled to smash the asylum door to splinters and slaughter both man and madman.

The barber approached both set of doors, noting how the smell seeped through the door's cracks like an odiferous liquid, and pounded a pale knuckle against the rotting wood. The sound echoed, echoed, echoed, faded into screams, slumbered in silence.

As if the sound were coming back at him, a tapping sound resonated and increased, a crescendo as obscured distance closed in. The odor hit the man and sailor dead on, a solid wall of disgust that crawled down their throats.

It took Anthony a minute to regain composure after a coughing fit.

The man who had answered--presumably an asylum keeper from his blood-splattered, white coat, twitching hands, and the absence of human sentiment in his grey, nearly transparent eyes--scoffed at the boy's impaired state, smearing blood onto his coat with a bony finger in circular patterns. On his coat was a row of six shining, black buttons.

The keeper was quick to take note of the barber as well. But he did not speak a word.

Then again, the eyes tend to have conversations all of their own. The eyes-- _his _eyes-- nearly portrayed the man's skull, they were eyes that told both men to turn on their heels and sink back into the haven of their homes. Do not enter the asylum, they said, and it sounded like childish laughter in Todd's ears. No man will leave with half the sanity they had when they entered. No soul is freed of the stone prison, it is forever chained, locked away. Stolen by the children.

"We're here to see Mr. Fogg, sir," Anthony finally choked out.

Todd preferred to keep quiet, an unvoiced threat to the keeper that he, too, could withstand the silence. Lord help him, years of solitary confinement proved resourceful now, of all moments.

"You're not the first," the keeper said, a tone of air rather than voice. "What is it that you require of the master?"

"You see," Anthony began, but his voice wavered and shook like an unstable child. He cleared his throat and sniffed back the slimy secretions in his nose. "I am a wigmaker's apprentice. I have come regarding the hair of your patients. It would indeed be prosperous on both of our accounts if you gained me access to your blondes so that I may pick a girl for my master's wig sales." To add to the moment, Anthony began to rub his thumb and forefinger together with a dramatic smirk. "With the right price, I think you and I can come to a beneficial agreement."

Mr. Fogg emerged from behind the keeper--a looming apparition that seemed to have slumbered in the misty air, waiting for the right moment in which he would take corporeal form. "Wigs, you say," he exclaimed, and stretched his long, grasshopper legs down towards the two men. He ran a colorless eye across Anthony, and smiled. "I see the apprentice. But who, oh who, could this gent be?" he said, almost singing his dry, parched words as he turned to Todd.

Up until this point, Todd had handled the situation like he would an irked guard in prison--apathy, defiance--his own sort of conspired rebellion. Now, he felt the indifference peeling away, exposing his inner core like wallpaper torn from its surface. It was a core of fear, of dread; his heart froze in terror for his daughter, imprisoned in such a place. The thought made him sick.

_When in doubt,_ he thought, _resort to rage. Drag these fucks to hell._

"This gent," Todd hissed towards Fogg, preserving a distance between them to feign some sort of respect as he jabbed a thumb into his own chest, "is the _wigmaker_. And _wigmaker _says to grant us access to your blondes before _wigmaker _takes his business elsewhere." HIs teeth ground together until he was certain they would chip and collapse.

"Of course, sir. After all, wigmaker's wish is Mr. Fogg's command," the man chuckled, unaware--or ignoring--Mr. Todd's threatening demeanor. "Do come in, " he beckoned in a snort, "and please, be wary of your surroundings."

The two entered, trailing behind Mr. Fogg as if they were lost travelers following a tour guide. Mr. Todd made certain to send the grim-faced keeper a scowl on his pale lips as his black, sunken eyes screamed at him, cursed him, promised to be the deliverer of his death should he even _think _of interfering with their plan.

The keeper saw the look, grimaced with his own unfeeling eyes, and stalked down a dank hallway, the walls bleeding raw sewage.

"Sir," Anthony ventured, walking beside Sweeney and staring at the back of Fogg's wispy, greasy scalp, "why exactly should we be aware of our surroundings?"

The group meandered to the opening of intersecting hallways, pitching a sharp left turn.

Fogg brandished a set of teeth; grime blotched in his gums like a quill's inky mark. "Well, I got up this morning to see my children. Give them a good peck on their poor cheeks." He laughed at a memory, indicated a side wall of piled cages with his scabbing thumb, and led them into another right side hall. "And, lo and behold, a child is missing from its cage!" Shaking his head, he sidestepped a stinking pile of excretion. "I don't know how it's possible. Perhaps one of my dear workers forgot to lock the cage. The children you see," Fogg's cold winter eye turned to look back at Sweeney as they passed what seemed to be a dreamy mirage of doors, "they tend to be a bit wild."

Todd heard Anthony's nervous gulp even over the noisy clatter of their boots.

"And here we are!" Mr. Fogg set himself before a thick, metal door with a tiny, tile-sized grating just before his eyes. He glared into the cell, a cool breeze carrying the odor of bodies to their noses.

Sweeney only realized the door was real when he slipped a hand to the surface and felt the frozen, slime-coated grating. It felt like chunks of ice in between his fingers.

And when he leaned his head towards it, he could almost hear his child breathing.

"Now, choose whichever one strikes your fancy," Fogg rummaged in his coat pocket, "and I'll shear off the hair." A set of scissors shined in his hand, talons of a beast.

The patients gasped and squirmed to form a path down the room when the door screeched open. Many of them clung to each other, the younger of the blondes burying their faces into women's laps. Some bared their teeth with threatening hisses, others wept as if to bring life to the dead. If only they could.

Fogg spread his arms, indicating the wide selection of blondes for the men's choosing.

Without further instruction, before Fogg could say anything, Sweeney was bounding across the room, lifting children's heads by their chins, calling his daughter's name over and over and over in his mind, but never from his lips.

Fogg regarded the scene with slit, narrowed eyes.

And after a shocked pause, Anthony began to commence in his searching, though it was not nearly as frantic as the barber's. "Johanna, dear," Anthony called out, swiveling on his feet to face the adjacent wall of the cell. "Where is she?" he yelled, receiving airy hisses from a group of women.

He neglected to see the girl lying near the corner, tightly bound in a restraining jacket, rolled onto her side and forgotten. Her face embraced the wall, her eyes squeezed shut, Death covering her body like a warm, plump blanket. The skin that sagged from her body was grey, cold--cold as the door to the cell, as the London night air, as the eyes of her suspicious asylum keeper.

The voices of the men swam in her ears, but she did not hear them. Death always dulls the senses.

Todd, wiping the droplets of perspiration from his brow with his sleeve, turned to give the room a larger glance. His heart raced--_pitter-patter_--against his collar. But when he caught sight of the small child's body in the corner, the tapping heart tripped, fell, shattered.

Anthony noted the frozen barber's wide stare, horror like ice in his eyes, and shrugged his way through the women, dropping to one knee to grasp the girl's head."Oh, God." He plopped her head into his lap and stroked dirty coils of her hair away from her pale, lifeless face. Blue, chapped lips, eyes scrunched closed, hands limp and loose, clutching air like a lifeless bird--Dead.

Todd could feel his body actually falter, his knees plunge to the floor, his breath simply stop_. Kill me, but let her live. Take my life, I deserve it. But I gave her life. Don't take it. Let my angel breathe._ He felt sobs clump in his chest, in his throat, but he had not the air to support them. His world was black, pinpricks of silver sparkled and danced in his vision.

"God, no, _God_, no," Anthony wailed. He shook her head, sobbing into her face, "No, NO! GODDAMNIT, NO!" He stood, his hair flapping around him like the fallen feather's of a bird, a mask of distorted fury on his face.

Johanna, crumpled on the ground with that placid expression on her face, stirred.

The barber felt life twitch in his chest.

"Is this the birdie you were looking for?" Mr. Fogg, raising his scissors, murmured as he stalked towards the girl. He slipped past Anthony, squatted, placed two palms on his knees, and studied her.

Her eyelids fluttered.

Oblivious to the this, Anthony continued to wail.

But Sweeney, with his body being torn in half as if splintered with a pickax, stared hard at his daughter's face, his eyes blistering as they searched for another sign of life. _Come on, Johanna, don't be like your mother! You have to fight! Fight to live! _Fight_!_

Anthony shook his head, clenched his fist, wiped tears from his eyes and salty spit from his lips. "You killed her._ You_ killed her," he chanted, and his fist disappeared into the satchel that hung by his hip.

Sweeney leapt to his feet and assumed a position by the boy's side, body arched, a snarl on his lips. He would have her back. No one would take her again!

In one swift movement, Anthony produced the gun from his satchel and directed the nozzle towards Mr. Fogg, index finger twitching to pull the trigger. He cocked the gun and aimed it at Fogg's coated back.

The asylum keeper heard the click, smiled to himself--a wry, tired grin--and turned to the two men. "A gun, sir?" Fogg shouted towards Anthony, braying like a wounded animal. "How modern! Shall I show you the archaic art of murder, sir? Do you wish to see it?"

Johanna's head lolled to the side, her voice lost to the man's shouts. "Anthony," she whispered.

Fogg turned towards Todd, whose eyes were still nailed to the sight of his daughter's moving lips, and the clouded madness in Fogg's eyes was thicker than his children's. A whole overcast sky in his eye of goddamned _insanity_. He leveled the scissors upward, and moved to plunge it through the air.

Johanna's scream, her wide, blue eyes, and quivering lip halted the attack.

Joy bounding from his voice, Anthony's arm fell, and the gun was aimed at the floor. "Johanna," he cried, nearly laughing for the hell of it. Yet when he went to approach her, to embrace the girl close to his chest, Fogg lunged to the child's side, grasped a fistful of her hair, and hovered the scissor's blades over the thin, paper skin of her neck.

Panicked, Todd wrenched the sailor back, away from the pair. "Raise your gun," he growled, "and aim between the eyes."

Fogg began to shriek his laughter, wiping at his tears with his free hand and rubbing them on Johanna's sore lips.

She wept,

she screamed,

and then her eyes fell to Sweeney Todd.

And the world as she knew it had stopped.

"_Hark, pious blade, thou have wounded me; have left my soul to thrash and bleed. I shall perceive thee in my sorrow, pierce a maiden's breast, and cease the morrow_!" He rhymed his words like a bittersweet poem with passionate beats at his chest. "Does this please you, wigmaker? Shall your apprentice be neither man nor warrior, but go at me with a gun? Give yourself a decent battle. "He clutched the scissors by their handle, and sliced his thumb after running it across the edge. It bled over the silver surface. "Let us both be archaic, sir wigmaker, and let us use the weaponry of our ancestors! Let us use a knife!" The blade inched closer to Johanna's floppy head.

"Drop the blade," Anthony commanded, his voice quivering like a wind-tossed leave, "or I'll kill you, I swear it!"

"Then do it, boy!"

The blade tickled her neck.

Johanna's eyes were still trained on her father, like nothing was happening at all, like Death was not brushing against her throat.

"_Kill_ _me_!" Mr. Fogg bellowed.

A trickle of blood sprouted from a nick on her skin. It was then that she screamed--at the sight of her own blood.

Anthony's hand cramped and fell. "I can't do it," he wept.

"Then her blood is on--"

Todd wavered, gasped, and clutched his chest. God, the scream; like his own when he had been beaten into the dirt. Like Lucy's in his nightmares after the tale of her demise had been spat out as if it was a pungent wine. Hell, if it had not been for her scream, he would have stayed frozen by hands that held him to the spot. But she had, and Sweeney Todd's wired nerves shot towards Anthony's gun, jolting him forward. Sweeney ripped the Derringer from Anthony's grasp, pushed the boy away from him, and directed it at Fogg's brow.

"--your hands."

The gun spat out a bullet with a mighty bang as the trigger retracted, and a flash of silver glinted in the sconces' light, whistling in the air.

It sunk into Fogg's brow before the vibrating thunder of the shot could fade. The whistling cut short, though--cut short with a fleshy, liquid thump. Gore splattered from the back of his skull and sprayed the walls, a mixture of blood-painted brain and locks of wispy, brown hair...

The gun clattered to the floor, wobbled, then rested.

"_He_ burns me," Fogg spluttered with crimson spraying from his puckered lips, and a final glance at his children. His chin clumped to his chest.

And then all hell was unleashed.

Women clawed their way around the room, screaming things that varied from demonic curses to nonsensical insults. Young and old, weak and frail; rushing towards their dead father, ripping his cooling flesh with their teeth and nails, gnawing his limbs from his torso like he had done to their brothers and sisters until the maimed, gory stump of his body was all that remained.

Others ran for the door, some to the window to curse London with plight and plague. Not one was sitting,, save the mortally ill and the dead, but many stood and cried into her palms, kissed each other's tears from their faces, and brought the younger ones to their breasts. The whores wept, the nymphomaniacs tore at their sandy locks and thrust chunks of hair to the floor, and the lepers hid their faces as they ran blind--to hide from all the panic, from the world drowning in blood.

Yet none of the women wailed as loudly as the women that were sane.

Anthony squirmed through a string of women, swiveled away from those who tore at his clothes and accosted him with foul remarks, and rushed to Johanna. He slammed his knees onto the concrete, tore her weightless body away from Fogg's empty grasp, whispering, "I'm going to get you out of here," into her scalp.

Johanna squirmed from his grip, but faltered without his arms around her wobbly body. "Papa," she mouthed, and when she said it again, her words stung her throat and gurgled with moisture.

"No, Johanna," Anthony made a grab for her bound arms, "your father isn't here. He's never been here!" With a thrust of her chest to his shoulders, he added in a shout, "We_ must_ leave."

Her crusted, blonde head shook. She pointed out Mr. Todd from the swaying crowd with her eyes. "Papa," she rasped again. Tears moistened and bit at her eyes, but the image of her father drowned in blonde manes, talon-like nails, sharp, bloody teeth...

Anthony followed her gaze then heaved her to her feet as she swayed against him. "Come on, dear."

A raw, inhuman shriek was the response to Anthony's actions, and Johanna writhed for liberty of his hold with thrice the madness of her inmates. She fought like an ensnared animal, beating at Anthony with her elbows, her harsh giggles screaming in her ear as she struggled away from him. The words formulated in her mind, but she somehow could not speak--a mute.

Anthony shot a hand to her arm, and she crashed her body against him, knocking him a foot away from her form. The words crashed into her. "He's home! Not here!" She gave a nervous, empty laugh, turned on her heel, and melded into the patch of shrieking women in search of the cell exit.

It was a sea of women around her, moving and squirming like a mound of insects or a wind-tossed patch of grass. Johanna, a piece of debris caught in the ocean, swayed from side to side, bounced from body to body. She screamed at the ceiling, calling a name she had not heard herself say.

The exit popped into her view.

Johanna shouldered towards it, stumbled to the front of the bulky, iron door, and slammed her sore arm onto its surface. The responding scream was lost in the shrill waves of sound around her, so she continued to wobble from the door with thoughts that if she did not hear the scream, then she could not have felt the pain. The notion seemed to get her through the doorway, to the wall just ahead of her. She crashed into it, pressed her burning brow against the cold, slimy bricks, and heaved.

When she was through, and her stomach churned with the stream of watery contents it still could bear, Johanna inched away from the wall, daring to turn, to spare the struggling room a quick, fleeting, last glance.

She heard _his_ voice, she had seen _his_ face, but could she dare believe it to be _him_? Was her father in that old cell, shouting her name, his voice stretching to her ear like a phantom's whisper?

A force, larger than her own will, wrapped around her ankle and slid her foot a step forward. How she wanted to plunge into that cell, into madness, and tear through the bodies until she was locked against _his_!

She almost did.

But then the voice came.

"What's the commotion down there?" A man, a scream, an order, and then footsteps, reaching towards the women's restriction corridor, growing louder and louder, bullet shots against stone floor.

Johanna turned to the sound, glimpsed at the cell, noting the absence of both Anthony and her phantom father. No, she could not trust her senses, not now. Her papa had promised to return home. If it was home he had promised, then it was home where he would be.

The man in that cell was a ghost, had always been a ghost.

She _had_ to find him, living, breathing. Home.

186 Fleet Street.

And before she could order her body to run, she was rushing down the halls, away from the voices, away from the smell of Death--in the back, where the bodies were buried--past Fogg's office, her mind recounting the trail she remembered Fogg taking when he had brought her to the cell.

She found the door, ran to it, swallowed the thick, London air, and stumbled down the steps.

Into the night...

After both man and barber clawed their way to the exit, ducking away from the shouts of approaching keepers, they noticed with fresh alarm that neither man was holding the girl they attempted to rescue.

"Where is she?" Anthony cried as they began to run through the winding halls, tearing at their minds for a layout of the building. The doors floated past their side vision, floating, iron doors.

Sweeney opened his mouth to reply, and a shrieking man--no doubt the one that had escaped from his cage--pounded on his shoulders with large, cracked knuckles. The barber lowered his upper body and ran, full force, at the man's trunk. The patient's back snapped against the wall behind him, and sunk to the floor after Sweeney crammed his fist into the man's jaw with a jarring crack.

Ready to slaughter anyone at this point, Todd stomped back to Anthony and hauled him to the exit by his elbow. "I saw you with her, boy!"

Crying like a small child, Anthony squirmed from his grip, and shuddered, "But she was looking at you! She was saying 'papa' and-and- that her father was home," he coughed as they scrambled past the morgue, "but I do not know...she-she never mentioned a father to m-m-me! Christ, "he swore, pushing against the main exit, already thrown open by someone prior, "she-she-she could be anywhere out there!"

Sweeney assessed the patch of darkness ahead of him, thunder in his voice, lightning in his eyes. "She said her father is home?"

"Yes, s-s-sir." Legs collapsing down the stairs, Anthony crammed a palm to his sweaty, aching forehead.

Todd's voice softened as did his eyes. "Then she is on her way to Fleet Street."

"But how, Mr. Todd! I didn't tell her where you lived!"

Already advancing forward, a determined stride in his legs as Anthony pounced to his side, Sweeney Todd said, "_You _may not have told her, but_ I_ did!"

London's streets: a maze of sewage filth that wound down the curb, licking the stone; beggars and rats scrounging the surface for food; lost pocket watches, sullied money, spilled bottles of liquor, even an occasional toy lost by its child owner--scattered across the road, buried in the reeking trenches.

Johanna found her skirt to be coated with filth after wobbling through two streets--possibly three. She tried to discern a scent from the air; it smelled of mold, fetid meat, and manure, but her nose sought an earthy smell, a smell of branches and pipe smoke from prison guards.

She whiffed the air, whiffed and smelled until her nostrils burned and she slumped to a nearby wall, her body tormented with cold shivers and prickled skin. She searched the endless strip of black alleys with her eyes, even when the empty sight made her vomit and retch onto the sidewalk. She forced herself straight and staggered ahead, even when her soul remained chained to the spot, vomiting and retching like purging her lunacy. But in her heart, her sick, weary heart, she knew that her lunacy was nailed into her, molded right into her mind, fitting into it like it had been there all along.

That same sick, weary heart was beginning to pump with less vigor, to bleed less blood, to wither in her tiny chest as her breaths pinched her throat. But 186 Fleet Street was the set of hands that tugged her forward, the adrenaline she needed to push on when her body longed to crumple against a wall, to give out, to die.

186 Fleet Street was her life--and if it were to end, then it would end there.

_Keep going, legs. Don't let me die yet. I need to see him. I have to be complete._

Still bound in a straightjacket, her naked feet burning with needle pricks, Johanna began to walk again.

A sea of worry churned in her stomach, swooshed to her throat, and she could taste sour acid on the back of her tongue. The wave of nausea became a storm, and she found herself collapsing to her achy knees, vomiting as the moist dirt seeped through her skirts like stubby roots, and her mind ached, and her throat burned. She regurgitated stale water, rubbed her wet chin against her shoulder, and squirmed on her legs but could not stand.

She began to sob, her breaths climaxed and then cut short; choked away as if strangled right out of her. Her lungs burned for air, and the fire spread to the rest of her body. To her bound arms, to her freezing feet.

Cloaked shadows fell and rose in her vision, dancing and jeering, as her knees blistered on the sharp stones.

The keening screams began not long after that, then the struggling of her aching arms in their restraints, the pleas, the dry tears she could not support with water or strength, and finally a stupor--a trance where she could stare at the floor and sniffle back mucus, but could not stir a joint or bat an eyelash. Bound and still. Waiting for something she did not know--with the wish to live, yet without the will.

A set of strong hands clutched a handful of her straightjacket and jolted her to her feet. Johanna faltered and released a mouse-cry of a shriek, peering into the shadowed face floating in front of her before her head lolled sideways. She groaned.

"Don't yeh know it's rude to be sittin' in the middle of the road, girl? Yeh could be killed!" A man--the obvious owner of the burly hands--scolded. He cleared his throat and spat a wad of tobacco to the side, speaking softer this time. "Why yeh out this hour and what on God's holy, flourishing Earth is this?" he asked, tugging at her jacket between two gloved, snow-colored fingers. He shot those same two fingers to her chin and lifted her head upright, towards him, the shadows still serving as a nighttime mask.

He pitched a bronze flask to the side so that both hands were free to clutch her cheeks. The liquid that pooled from the nozzle looked like blood.

The girl's head plopped backward when he released his hold, his sharp gasp, a knife to the chaste quiet. "Bugger me," he cursed, and tucked a strand of hair into his palm. Specks of dirt crumbled onto his thick-lined glove.

The man now grasped both of her shoulders, pulled the child back, and gave her one last, penetrating glare. "Goddamn them all."

Her voice came rushing to her chest, but tangled in the moisture of her throat and the dryness of her tongue.

A glint of silver bounced in the moonlight, winking at her like a burning star, and then lowered to her tied arms.

A knife, she realized with a strangled, hoarse cry. Her brain shuttered and fell, so only instincts allowed action to unfold. She wept and whispered soundless pleas, none of which were heard by anyone, let alone herself.

"Calm down, little lady. I don't wanna cut yeh."

It was the 'little lady' that stilled her, and the feel of the straightjacket loosening its coils around her body that pacified her fit. The crunch of snipped material was the sole sound of liberty.

"There yeh are," he whispered, shrugging the rest of the jacket off of her shoulders. Her tattered dress exposed her bare skin to the biting night air, and she shivered until she chomped on her tongue. She tasted blood.

"Come here, now." The male shrugged off his coat with a grunt and wrapped it around her narrow shoulders and swollen arms, warm, taut.

The man's large coat felt heavy, like weighty sandbags, and inched closer and closer to slipping from her bones. Her tongue shriveled into the back of her throat, she could not find her voice.

"Your bloody father better keep yeh in 'is sight forever, I swear by all that is holy. I should be requestin' tips," the man muttered as he rubbed her forearms for heat.

"Sir," Johanna squeaked, a sharp shiver slipping the jacket from her shoulders.

The man's eye shot towards it, pinned it against her side before it could plummet to the floor, and repositioned it on her body. "Yeah, little lady?"

"Who...who are you?"

He gaped at her, wide eyed and unbelieving, his brow a thin line of wrinkles in the darkness. "Yeh don't recognize me...little lady?" His shock was cut off by small, hearty chuckles. "Oh, god, Johanna, you're nearly as bad as your father, yeh are. Yeh mean to tell me that yeh don't remember me? Little ol' _me_?"

Johanna responded to his humor with silent tears. This man knew her name, claimed to know her father, and yet he had the nerve to laugh in her face when she could barely hold her head up to meet his mirthful grin. It was not so much that she wished to know his relation to her, but more so to her father. A friend of his...but in all honesty, Father Christmas could have been leading her by the hand to Fleet Street and she would not have known nor given a damn.

Detecting her misery within her quivering lip and teary, diminishing eyes, the man cleared his throat and lowered his rough voice. The voice of a con clad in the clothes of society's finest. "It's John, little lady. Your good mate, John."

Johanna bit her lip and thought hard, her brow furrowing like paper scrunched by an angry fist. "John?" she repeated, a question more than realization. "John..." A figure, a face--laughter, she remembered laughter--"What's our kind laundry gal doin' in this place?" His voice, his kind, gruff, caring voice, ringing in her mind, whispering into her ear..."You both go by the last name: Barker."

John.

Johanna staggered, her bare feet dipping into a puddle of slush. The winter liquid burned her oozing cuts.

_John! _

There had been a beard on his broad chin, but where had it went? His hands were cut and bruised, but now they were gloved. His eyes had been hard and experienced, but now they churned and bubbled...with love? Had he found his family?

All of these thoughts crammed into her head like a splatter of water in an already filled cup. Her mind overflowed, thoughts slipped over each other, dripped from her mind to her mouth. "John..._Oh_, John..." she spluttered, and beside herself with weak cries, brought her head to his large shoulder.

"Come now, little lady...don't yeh cry," he hushed her with an encircling hand on her thin-haired scalp. The strands felt like coarse string in his gloved palm. "You'll be back home soon enough, alright? Back home to your papa. You'll hold him to yeh soon enough, guaranteed."

"And let me die if I cannot!" she screamed against him. The slight frame rocked and arched, sobs of considerable strength tearing her from the inside out.

"Don't yeh say that! You've made it this far, haven't yeh? Come now, girl, your shaking something fierce."

She swallowed a lump of tears in her throat, the dry sides rubbing together, and nodded her head to his command.

"There's a girl." He pulled her away at arm's length. "Now, last I saw, your father lived on 186 Fleet Street. Do yeh remember that?"

She sobbed, a bit more gentler this time, and gagged at the faintest stench of sewage waste.

John gave her arm a light shake. "Come on, Johanna," he cried, "don't start this again! Tell me, is that where your father lives?"

She blubbered a few words, mostly nonsensical, and mopped her runny nose with the tattered sleeve. "Yes, sir."

HIs face eased and his words softened. "Come, then. I'll take yeh there."

She snaked a hand to his arm, attaching to it like it were a part of her own body. "Alive?" she whispered. Her voice sounded like a rusty nail scraping a clean, porcelain plate.

She may have said only a single word, but John absorbed the meaning with ease. "Course he is, little lady. Alive and about, though he's gone nearly mad himself without yeh, 'e 'as." His brow twitched. "But none of that now," his large, booted feet began to stride forward, towing her along, "Fleet Street's a good walk from here..."

They walked on without a pause. Occasionally, John would give the girl a squeeze on her arm, as much as it pained her, while he kept her tucked into his side. He would whisper things into her ear--How her father missed her. How he would take her to the market on warm, sunny days. They would see each other there, she would meet John' s family. He spoke of happiness, true, utter happiness, joy when her feet fumbled over the other, or when her knees buckled, or her stomach yearned to reject its contents.

And when she cried for her papa, he gave her a gentle kiss on her temple and whispered, "He's never too far away, love, and he's always thinkin' of yeh."

They pressed forward, John clutching her even tighter to his side when a constable strolled by with an inquisitive frown on his lips. And though John knew the risks, knew that the sight was suspicious, that he was an ex-con leading a girl from a mental asylum, he whistled a jovial tune and led Johanna towards her home. She longed to thank him, but her voice failed her once more, from then until a building with gilded letters read 186 Fleet Street rose into sight.

The windows were lit, lacy curtains obscured the house's occupants, a large skylight was melded into the ceiling on the second floor, parallel to the city. There was something different about this building, it poked and prodded memories into her conscious, and she could hear soft voices coaxing her to go inside.

Entranced, she did as the whispering mouths said, and slipped away from John, limping to the door, eyes only for the large, glassy window on the second floor. She drank in the light, absorbed the energy it exuded, ready to touch it, to cup it in her hands. She would have reached it, too, had the door not barricaded her from entering the building.

Still without the ability to speak, Johanna shrieked at the door, began to pound on it with her fists until they cracked, and drizzles of blood streaked down her arm to her elbow as if this would make the obstacle give way. The windows rattled, the wood of the door shuddered.

"Little Lady," John exclaimed, directing her fists away with a grab at her wrists, "yeh 'ave to open it, doll. Here." He did so.

Mrs. Lovett, kneading dough with her fingers, stared at the door, eyes wide like full moons, her mouth slightly ajar. "Were yeh the one raising holy hell against my door?" she muttered, slamming the dough onto the cutting board. Puffs of flour aired around her.

The accusation slipped through Johanna's mind like water through unclasped fingers. John remained in the doorway as the girl advanced into the shop, her mouth and eyes opened wide, searching about the room for a man with a wild mane of tangled, black hair, a sharp, shocked wave of grey streaming through it, and all the love in his gaze that her heart could muster. He was not there.

"What is it that yeh want?" Mrs. Lovett demanded, picking up a rolling pin and wielding it like a dagger. To her side, a younger child, with disheveled, brunette hair and large, chocolate eyes assessed the strangers.

Finally, after the silence had burned its mark on the air, Johanna let the words bubble and brew in her chest, to her lips. "Benjamin Barker," she said, fixing her glance on the woman. "Please, Mrs. Lovett where is he?"

A smack of shock hit the woman directly in her face. "Benjamin...who?" she echoed, "I don't know what you're talkin' 'bout, love."

"Oh, please ma'am, you have to remember!" Johanna cried, releasing all tensions with a lunge at the woman.

The boy cried out and made to block Johanna's path, but the girl maneuvered around his tiny frame and crashed into Mrs. Lovett's. She looked up into the woman's smoky, shadowed eyes, screeched, "Oh, God, Mrs. Lovett, don't you remember?"

The woman shook her head, glancing towards John in the doorway for assistance.

It did not come.

"Remember the Judge and how you came to him, pleading for my mother's life?" Johanna grasped the woman's shoulders, screaming like her inmates had, hands wired with electric tremors. "You must! Remember how you spoke to me and you promised to tell papa I loved him!"

Eyes blinking in disbelief, mouth coiled into a horrified gasp, the woman shook her head, side to side, closed her eyes, opened them. Closed, opened, closed, opened. "God in heaven," she said, her rolling pin plunging to the floor.

"Where is he, Mrs. Lovett!" Johanna shrieked, her voice so shrill, so strident, the woman's ears rang and ached. "_Goddamn it!"_ She keened over, an overpowering pain in her stomach, her heart sped until she felt it would burst. "Where is he?" She tasted blood on her lips, felt fire eat her veins, devouring her entire body. "WHERE IS MY FATHER!"

There were footsteps behind her, into the shop, by the door. Heavy, booted taps, and then a male's deep, labored breath.

The woman's teary eyes ran from the child to the doorway, frozen in space. They then flicked back to Johanna, to the doorway, to Johanna.

Unable to stand it any longer, the girl inhaled a shaky breath, and turned to face the doorway.

There, in the doorway of Mrs. Lovett's pie shop, breathing,_ living_, and after countless days of wishing and waiting, stood her father.

_Her father._

**Hey, everybody! Guess what? **

**THEY'RE REUNITED!**

**Because I made you guys wait a zillion years for this chapter, I decided to make it one of the longest chapters I've yet to write.**

**So if you all review and tell me how you cannot wait for daddy and kiddo to be together again, I'll have the next read up as soon as humanly possible!**

**Drop me a line, everybody! **


	42. Chapter 42

**Chapter 42 **

**186 Fleet Street**

Her father had changed. Johanna noticed this before she could move a fraction of an inch, process a word from her mind to her lips, frozen into a silly _o_ shape.

Black-those were his eyes, now. No longer a stirred, ebony shade- simply black; black jewels in the hollowed bone of his skull, black pockets around his eyes. The white streak in his hair remained-could it have possibly acquired an inch in length over the course of their parting? His face, pale, ghastly, as white as a virgin's wedding gown. He wore no coat, though the night was freezing. It seemed he had done so to relieve himself of the laden on his back during his flight through the city. She could see the blood veins that coursed up his arm under his cuffed sleeves , like the inky trails one would scribble on a map.

But the one thing that had remained untouched was the unadulterated love from his gaze that sprinkled on her, drenched her-a rippling, tearing stream of love that could have been as foreign as her own voice.

She remembered, remembered how dearly she cherished that look. How her heart bled to look into this face one more time, even if those eyes-his beautiful, stormy eyes-were to be the last thing she would ever see. It would be a blessing.

Her swollen, chilled foot slipped over the wooden planks towards him. Shivers rattled up her back from the frozen floor, her teeth chattered like a woodpecker tapping on a tree. She swallowed the clumped ice in the back of her mouth.

_Papa._

Days, countless days, and that one word had brought her nothing but memories-a sharp strike at her face if she was particularly lucky, or a spat out promise that her father was long since dead. Could she dare utter it now, or would it be thrown back in her face like so many times prior? Could her body take another wound such as that without the blow being mortal?

Then, as her throat closed in and air was caught in her neck like a sealed off pipe, she stumbled upon yet another truth. 186 Fleet Street-her home, her life; she had made it. If she were to die-and Death's cold grip was already beginning to stifle her fluttering heart-then she were to die here. She had nothing to lose, yet one more truth she begged to gain.

Was this man, this angel that stood before her, real? Alive?

So, with a closed throat and a faltering grip on her consciousness, she spoke.

"Papa," the girl whispered, so quiet, it seemed as if she had mouthed the word. But beneath the silence was a tone of uncertainty. She seemed to look right through him, as if staring outside of the door behind him. As if she were not sure he was there.

The heat of his gaze burned, but the stone in his eyes gave way. Todd's eyes shuttered closed as his thoughts comingled with emotions he had isolated, shunned. Beneath his lids, hot tears stung and teetered on the edge of spilling over. "I'm here, my love," he shuddered. A painful rip was beginning to gouge his heart. He pried his eyes open, doused every fiery nerve in his body that wished to leap towards his daughter and..._hold_ her.

After what seemed to have been a lifetime of holding only muddled dreams, like an aged photograph with white tear lines creased onto its film. That and revenge. How trivial it all seemed when he stared into the face of his child-the life he had created when he had thought himself to be only a deliverer of Death.

Yes, he-the demon without a heart, the man behind the Reaper-had given life, valued it, guarded it.

_But God Almighty,_ he could only think, _ look at her now._

Her arms, thin bone wrapped taut with a sheet of skin. Her legs were as skinny as the splintered legs of a kitchen chair; her waist, jagged at the ribs like the open claw of a vulture. And her hair, her glorious, bouncing ripples of gold, now tainted at the scalp with streaks of amber that seeped down to her roots, as if someone had taken a cup of water and drizzled it over her head. She was coated in dirt, too, a second skin-would it ever wash off?

But the love in her gaze was pure, whole, and innocent... yet strange. When he first saw that look-those wide, tired eyes, her crinkled brow-his mind wrestled and pinned a brief vision of Lucy before it could fly by, almost as hazy as the mirage of doors that had drifted past him in the asylum. It evaded his head as quickly as it had been ensnared, but he caught a glimpse of crimson lips, scarlet cheeks, soft, sensitive eyes.

Afterward, Todd could only see his daughter. His frozen, emaciated Johanna.

Guilt chomped him to pieces, swallowed him whole, and spat out the little remnants of his heart, like the discarded scraps of food on a pushed aside plate. His stomach bubbled and brewed with something warm and sour.

"Are you really here?" she questioned with a true look of question-drawn eyebrows, squinted eyes, a timid step in his direction. "After months of hearing your voice," she paused, blinked away the hot tears, and swallowed her cries, "and seeing your face..."

His own face crunched with despair, with sorrow. "It's me, love."  
_All that is left of me_.  
"Your...your _papa_." The word slid out, watery like his eyes.

Johanna shook her head as her mind blistered. She was walking to him, but she had not realized it. Her steps were slow; she barely had the strength to lift a foot. It was like trying to nudge a boulder with her toe. "So if I speak to you," she whispered, "you'll answer back."

He nodded his head, _yes_, though he had not given himself a voice.

"If I look at you, you'll not go away?" Closer, he could feel her; the bond that they shared, coiling tighter around his spirit.

"Never," he answered this time. _Never- but come here, my angel, please! Give this demon a soul.  
I love you._

She was set before him now, so close, their breaths tickled each other's cheeks. So distant, their hearts seethed and thrashed, clawed and reached forward in vain-Both of their wandering souls only contained by their stubborn bodies.

"And if I touch you," her voice wavered, fell, "and tell you how much I love you," a thick, burning tear slid from the crease of her eyes to her quivering chin, "you'll-you'll..." She was devoid of power to continue, her voice crumpled by the withheld cries.

"I'll say it back," he shot out, stepping even closer to her-chest to chest, his hands shooting to her scrawny forearms. "I'll hold you, tell you how I need you, how I would die for you..." His fingers slid to the bony ridges of her cheeks. Her tears seeped beneath the pad of his thumbs-warm, wet tears.

She opened her mouth as if to speak, perhaps a strangled word or a choking sob, but her hand rose and leveled with his chest instead. Then, as she gnawed at her lip and a new shower of tears fell, she placed all thin fingers on his collarbone-just above his heart. It beat against her skin, _thump-thump._ Air streamed in his chest, trembling and rapid. It felt as if someone was whistling against her skin.

Todd stared into her eyes. He searched for an oasis of blue, a reason as to why she wanted to do such a thing, and then his gaze fell to her hands, the delicate hands pressed against his panting heart and heaving neck. She wanted this- a sign of life. Proof that he was there, towering before her-as he always had-confessing things he would never dare say to another living soul.

There was a light in his daughter's eyes, an understanding. The gamut of reality registered into place, each thought glided in perfect harmony with the other. This man was her father. He had returned to London, sought her out, and here he now stood, alive, breathing. Joy tingled in her chest, her mind floated into slumber, rested.

Everything was fine. It all had been a horrible nightmare, the ones she awakened from panting, uttering dry sobs. There had been no asylum, there had been no Beadle, no Judge...

Judge...

Johanna's fingers curled like something dead, her stomach was clenched by a steel fist. Something inside her, something dark and brutal and evil, dared her to think the name.

_Go on, think it. Say it over and over again. Chant it like a song and remember it. Never forget it, never forgive him. THINK IT! THINK IT!_

She did.

_Judge Turpin_.

The smooth transition of thought then crashed dead on with shock, a derailment of control. The pain she had felt, the nausea-how her youth had been splintered and her soul, bruised. How _he_ had stared at her, _his_ smirk just as twisted as her body. All of it dashed in front of her eyes, her own screams blared in her ears. She felt her body split and burn, her head pound, tears slip onto her chapped lips. She tasted sharp salt on her tongue. Cries shot up from her chest, ripped through her sore throat, and sliced the air like a keen rapier from its sheath.

She fell into her father's chest. She screamed against his cool neck. Her knees wobbled, and then buckled.

And he fell with her, onto his shins, her head cradled in his pale hand.

It was surreal.

Slippery, wet tears cascaded down her scalp, and his face burrowed in her hair. Her father whispered something against her, but she did not hear it. She coughed, heaved against his shoulder, dug her nails into the thin cotton of his shirt-though she had chewed them down to the stub-and tried at smelling her father's scent. She could not; her nose was too clogged.

And though she was coated with grime, clad in rags that smelled of Death and infection, Todd curled her sandy locks in-between his knuckles, brought them to his nose, and detected the meager aroma of his daughter's scent- a muddled lavender. His lips trailed over her hair to her head, to her temples, to her cheeks. He slipped both hands on her neck, brought the little face up towards him, and kissed each salty droplet from her gaunt cheeks. The girl's flesh was smudged with clean streaks from tears and dirt.

"Y-y-you c-c-c-came h-home."

A corner of his wavering mouth rose. "I promised I would," he whispered because he still could not find his damned voice.

Johanna stroked his jaw with her thumb, wept, "Then I don't have to fight anymore."

Sweeney Todd froze, his phantom smile now a deep frown. Beneath his hands, he could almost feel her blood thicken and slow, the life gently pooling out of her. "What do you mean?"

She smiled, but her eyes did not. "You're alive, papa. I'm complete again. I can sleep, now, forever. With you at the foot of my bed."

His heart paused in mid-flight when her frail breaths grew sluggish. "No, lovely, no," he shook his head, "You cannot..."

With those same sad-somewhat apologetic- eyes and weak smile, Johanna pressed a kiss against the bottom of his jaw. She gave a soft cry, her lips stretching on his skin as she turned her head to rest on his throat. His heartbeat drummed against her temple.

She counted her breaths with the beats of his heart, and her own as his doubled in alarm. Her hands uncoiled from his neck, her body was suddenly loose, limp. Her breath, first a panicked storm of wind, now a mere trickle, a dead breeze.

Todd tore the child away from his chest, lowered her entire frame into his lap, and hovered over her. "No, no, no," he stammered as Johanna's eyes squinted at him, glazed over, closed.

The light of the outside morn was weak and dull-cloudy, murky light that crept onto the floor like rays of silver.

Todd reeled back in his own nausea. Five days had come to pass. Johanna would not even live to die on the sixth day.

His own body succumbed to gravity. He held the limp child tight, afraid that she would be snatched away from him once more, terrified that Death would slip into her blood if he released her.

As one hand rested on the bony ridge of her spine, the other slid over the moldy clothing that draped over her stomach, snaking its way from his daughter altogether, and onto the stiff hold of his holster.

Against his hand, the icy, sculpted hilt of his razor graced his skin. It fit right into his palm, like a sacred mold, an extension of his arm. He lifted it from its leather casing, raised it upward, stared at it teetering in his hand. Flicking it open as the metal ping resounded in his ears, Sweeney raised it parallel to his eyes and, with a hungry glare, tucked the tool into a closed fist. The silver blade protruded from his oblivion like an exclamation point aimed for his throat. His arm tingled, and his elbow had already began to jolt forward when a hand snatched his wrist.

Mrs. Lovett was leaning over him, strands of tossed, brown curls dangling over her face, a strawberry-pink shade slapped onto her cheeks, and tiny beads of tears gliding across her pale skin. "No, Mr. T," she spluttered, giving his arm a tug away from his throat.

He growled.

After Mrs. Lovett's silent, insistent look at the door, John, too, trudged to the group. The ex-con cuffed his shirt arms past his elbows. "Alright, Ben," he said, voice gruff, "you're goin' to put that blasted thing down, now." With one hand steadied on the barber's shoulder, John slithered his grasp onto Sweeney's arm, directly above Mrs. Lovett's coiled fingers.

"No!" Todd cried out. The sudden scream, the savage push with his fists, jolted the both of them."Let me die!"

"I ain't goin' to let you die, yeh bloody moron! How can I let you take your own life when your daughter still clings to 'ers?" John managed to slide his hand to the barber's clenched fist and jerk it down to Johanna's head. "Feel her breath, Barker. She ain't dead yet!"

The barber's fingers unclenched and drifted over his daughter's mouth. His skin shriveled when he felt no air waft across his hand.

And then faint life suddenly trickled passed Johanna's unmoving lips-breath, beautiful, lively breath. It kissed his fist, caused the razor to fly through the air, to fall to the floor, to rest there, forsaken.

It was like he had said before, now was time to be the father and not play the father.

He had to move.

In one rapid lurch of his arms and legs, he had scooped his daughter into the air, one arm tucked beneath her knees while the other supported her back. He bounced her in his embrace to roll her closer to his chest and looked towards the room's occupants-of which he had nearly forgotten them all. Leaning against the wall for support was Anthony, aghast, with bated breath and wide eyes. Toby, stationed like a military soldier at his post, clung to Lovett's side. His expression was much like Anthony's- shocked at seeing _Mr. Todd_ displaying a bounding storm of human emotion. And then there was John and Lovett, the two staring at him with soft expressions. Their gentle stares hardened to stone when Johanna murmured something unintelligible and pushed at her father's chest.

"Come on, love," the baker instructed. She pointed towards the sitting room. "I've got a room for yeh to put 'er in."

"She can come to my shop," Todd said, glancing at his daughter as Johanna's slurred words grew louder, like a mute's protest. Her eyes remained squeezed shut.

"I'll not have yeh walking up those stairs with her in your arms. Not now." The woman stopped short, gave the girl a tight frown, and staggered forward to investigate Johanna at a closer distance. Her sigh was breathy, exhausted, as she slipped a hand over one of the girl's arms for inspection.

A swollen lump was burrowed beneath the girl's skin, the edges bruised with shades of dark yellow, blue, and black-like the violent streaks of an artist's brush. She moaned when the woman prodded at it with her forefinger, at the gritty buildup of bacteria under the light, pink scar embroidered on her flesh.

"She's been infected," Lovett whispered.

Just as quiet as the baker had been, Todd replied, "I need bandages, water, and towels, Mrs. Lovett. I have to make an incision." He shuddered, but squared his shoulders in rebellion to the display of weakness. His knees wobbled as he lowered himself to retrieve his razor. It wept silver onto the wooden floor. He shoved it into its holster and forgot about it.

Nodding her head, Lovett forced a calm smile to her lips and slipped a possessive arm around Toby. "Go and get some towels, love. Towels, water, and handkerchiefs for bandages."

The boy sent Johanna a hard glance and shifted his gaze to Todd. "That's infected awful bad, Mr. T. Be sure yeh use cold water to get all the grime out o' there, sir. It'll clean it better."

The barber was silent, yet his eyes were fastened on the boy. Something in his gaze had stood up, risen from the shadows, and shined. Perhaps it was a glint of appreciation. Toby would not have doubted it. "Thank you, son," the man murmured. The ensuing silence was not strained this time-it was respectful.

Not surprisingly, Mrs. Lovett's deep, raspy voice altered the moment. "Sailor boy," she called to Anthony, her next vulnerable target, " I need yeh to help the lad with anything he may need, stop looking so goddamned petrified, and get me a glass of gin!"

"To clean her wounds?" Anthony suggested, though he reeled in shock after the baker's outburst.

"Course not!" she seemed to muster the sarcasm to roll her eyes, "For _me_! Now, go on!"

"And you," Lovett said, swiveling to John-there was a lack of intensity in her gaze-"need to go out and get yourself a pint. You deserve it."

"Can I help you at all?" John replied. Both of his eyes wavered over the father and daughter.

Todd shook his head, hugged Johanna closer to his heart. God, he had forgotten the wonders her simple touch had done to him. "You've done enough."

John smiled-a grin barely fit to be called a grin, a laugh that held less mirth than a sob. "I'll come back in a few hours, then. Give yeh both some time before I come pouncin' back." He left, and the serenity of the room departed with him, hand in hand.

With the baker as his hasty escort, Sweeney Todd began to stalk through the hall leading to the parlor. He passed the room of golden trinkets, soft throw pillows, and flowery, imprinted wallpaper, into the short hall where a set of doors loomed before him. One of which was Mrs. Lovett's room, he knew, but the other, he had not the slightest inkling. He hoped for a bed; it would be the only thing he needed.

The door did not budge when Mrs. Lovett tried at opening it. Its hinges gave stubborn creaks, and the frame shuddered when Lovett rammed her shoulder against its weathered, beige panels.

Todd barged his side into the door-Johanna still balanced in his arms-and it opened with a soft click in one clean, swift arch.

The look Mrs. Lovett gave was a raised brow, a silly frown-_Well, aren't you just a miracle worker?_ it said_._

At the moment, it was a breath of humor.

_Short lived, of course,_ he mused_. Nothing good remains. _

Johanna fidgeted in his tight arms, and the humor died. She whispered his name again and pressed her lips against the folds of his shirt. She was kissing him.

_She's an exception. My Johanna will stay with me until I'm dead._

The room smelled of dust, thicker than Mrs. Lovett's cooking flour, and its grey specks sparkled in the rising sun. There were two windows, one by a bookshelf-that bulged and leaned to the side as its shelves prodded out like crooked teeth-and the other near a corner bed, adorned with lacy blankets, antique pillows, and a cast iron headboard. Perched on a nightstand, a vase of dead flowers wept ashy petals onto the bedside wood.

He hastened forward and deposited the girl onto the mattress. The bed gave an unstable moan, and he was instantly prepared to snatch her back into his hold. Mrs. Lovett released a puppy-yelp beside him. But, Johanna, being barely the weight of a pick-ax in his arms, was barely a burden on the wooden legs. The bed grew silent after it adjusted to the petite occupant.

Todd sighed, relieved, but tension ate at him once again as he gave his daughter a quick assessment. It was difficult to pin-point each area he would have to attend to when his eyes were coated with a sheet of tears. With a drop of his stomach, he realized that her arm would have to be treated first. He ran a hand through his mane a third time, the ends sticking up in wavy spikes as his sweat glistened on his palm.

Tiny footsteps tapped behind the pair, and were then stifled as they traveled across the bedroom's lone rug. "Here yeh go, mum," Toby announced, bandages and towels piled in his hand like he were collecting laundry. "I showed the Anthony fellow where the bucket was, and filled it with water, too." He plopped the supplies onto the bed, and turned to his 'mother' with a proud grin. The grin morphed into a grimace when his eye caught hold of the strange girl.

The baker kissed his thick, layered hair, whispered, "Thank yeh, my dear. Now go sit outside and wait for me," against his warm forehead.

At least a gallon of blood drained from the child's face. "Yes, mum." He departed like a swift wind, gusting through the doorway and breezing out of their minds. Without a word, without a fight.

Anthony proved to be the challenge.

Pale and silent, the sailor trailed in after the boy departed, a bucket of sloshing, cold water in his unstable hands. He stole a glance at his beloved, and his hands trembled as if they were made of string. Mrs. Lovett lurched forward and ripped the water from his flimsy grip before it plummeted to the floor.

"Dear Lord," the sailor gasped. He summoned enough strength to slam his palm to his throat. "Johanna. Please, don't let her die...I've fought so hard for her and-"

"Alright, sailor!" Lovett snapped as she stomped forward and hauled the boy to the door. "It's time for yeh to go. Have a seat in the parlor with Toby and wait for me, got it?"

The boy gave a few weak protests, accompanied with diminutive gestures of his hands and a jumble of stuttered, shrill words.

After she shoved the boy into the doorway, grunting and cursing like the majority of the _Bountiful's _crew, Anthony pivoted and opened his mouth to, yet again, defy her commands.

She was just about to greet his oppression with a door in his face when she slid a hand to its thin, rectangular edge, leaned against the pane, and said, "Did yeh get me my gin?"

"What? Why, no-"

The windows rattled, the floor creaked, and the house seemed to give an awkward waggle when the woman slammed the door shut. "I ask one bloody thing, and what do I get? A whole load of nothin'!"

Sweeney had observed the confrontation for a moment, and then fixed his attention to his daughter. Johanna was still on the bed, the linen sheets creasing in sync with her breath. Her sweet, quiet breath. Breath, life, beautiful...shallow.

His brow tightened, tears pin-pricked his eyes. Sweeney curled the blankets tighter around her waist and wrestled a sheet from between her body and the quilt. After the cloth was liberated, he bent forward and tucked it beneath the sore, exposed arm. He clumped the edges of the material around her skin, forming a cast that left only the top skin bare for treatment.

He slipped the razor from its encasing after his fingers had brushed against the cold, embroidered handle. The one with the single silver rose, sculpted vines, and rigid leaves. He had always liked that one. He swiped it across his trouser and laid the flat of the blade across the disturbed lump of her skin. "When I make the first cut," he dabbed the moisture from his eyes, either sweat or tears, "you hand me the water."

Mrs. Lovett shook her head, but agreed to his command. "Course," she said. Her previous aggression was wiped away when she cracked her neck and freed her muscles of tension.

The blade's edges stood on the girl's arm, the skin caved in when he applied pressure to it, and Sweeney could barely go through with the incision before his heart began to slam against his chest. His breath tumbled out of him, and he could not seem to suck enough air back into his lungs. Her soft skin turned a ghastly white against the keen razor, broke, and sprouted blood from the lengthy slice. It looked like a blotch of red ink, which is what Todd tried to convince himself it was-the salty, metal smell of blood counteracted his self-assurances. He dug through the pus and debris of the infection, digging out the little he could not reach with his fingernail. He wiped the gory residue on the sheet, and it looked like ruby, sunset streaks against the paper-white linen.

It smelled like madness, the infection. It smelled like neglect, it smelled like suffering. It smelled like pain.

The girl moaned, pushed at her father's arm, and hissed; the hiss became a groan, a cry, a gentle sob.

"I know, my love...Almost done." The barber wiped the incision with one of the clean towels after retrieving it from the far corner of the bed. He said, "The water," as he beckoned towards Lovett with his forefinger.

There was a pause.

He did not have _time_ for a pause!

"The fuckin' water, dammit!"

The bucket was cold in his hand, like handling a bulky chunk of ocean ice. It splashed and gurgled in its confines as he, his stomach plopping to the ground and rolling like a boulder, poured it onto the open wound. The freezing, light stream swept away any neglected secretions, pooling onto the bed sheet spread beneath her elbow.

Again, Johanna's body jerked. Her screams succumbed to weeping.

He hushed her as his expert hands swabbed the wetness from the cut, looking like a set of puffy, red lips on her skin. Without breaking his stare, or even blinking for that matter, Todd's fingers travelled down the lumpy folds of the quilt until he felt the pile of handkerchiefs. He unraveled a long strip, dressed the wound, and applied pressure to it with the thick bottom bone of his palm. The cut was jagged and rough beneath the cloth, and the blood poked at its surface, bloomed.

Still, he had not stopped shaking. The barber deposited the bucket onto the floor to dodge the chance of losing his grip.

"Alright, love," the baker came up to him and rubbed his stony shoulder muscles, like trying to flatten rocks with her fingertips. "I'm goin' to get some more water. We need to clean the poor thing up."

The woman had departed before she could glimpse the barber's jerky nod, the way he swallowed the buildup in his throat as he sat next to his daughter's form. He smoothed the sweaty strands of hair from her bony face while the baker's footsteps faded out, lost to the sound of clattering horse hoofs on the outside street. Her skin burned against his lips, as if he were kissing a window bathed in sunlight. He longed to cry at this, to wail, to curl the fragile doll against him and refuse her release. To grieve.

He could not.

_Be the father!_

He heard the approaching swish of water prior to the woman's chirping. "I got yeh some fresh towels," the baker declared as she staggered forward, the second bucket in her hand clutched at the handle. The towels were pinned between her ribs and the inside of her arm. "I'm goin' to have to strip 'er down to her chemise, now," she warned while collecting the pile of bloody, wet sheets, and tossing them onto the center throw rug. Her brown eyes turned to him, sharp, like an arrow. "I'm assumin' you're goin' to 'elp me."

To counter her fierceness, Sweeney avoided her gaze. He gathered his daughter's upper body into his lap-her back to his chest, her head cushioned on his shoulder. "Of course," he murmured, but his anger could only thrive for so long when he stared at the life cuddled against him.

Mrs. Lovett seemed to have noticed this-her voice was softer, her words kinder. "Well, yeh hold her good and tight and I'll get that filthy thing off of 'er."

The bed posts protested again as the woman crawled towards the pair.

Todd's heart accelerated. A part of him, a part he did not wish to admit, did not want anyone laying a finger on his child. This brought an iron strength to his arms, caused them to wind tighter around Johanna's scrawny shoulders. Lovett's fingers eased through the barriers, like weaving through his skin, though she could only graze the surface of the girl's collarbone. She huffed in frustration and positioned herself closer to the two, tried at prying his arms away from the girl, and when she failed at that as well, she shot a fiery glance at him-eyes large with challenge, lips pursed. A curtain of rouge swept through her skin when she glanced up, the distance between their faces was slight. His breath was a kiss to her skin, his stare made her feel vulnerable and exposed-to the point where she was nearly envious of Johanna cradled in his scarred, burly arms. How his smooth skin poked from beneath his sleeves, how his chest heaved...

At some point, the barber cleared his throat to break her trance, and she shot her gaze to the floor in a wave of embarrassment. Her face recoiled a foot from his, but her arms had not. "You'll 'ave to move a bit if yeh want me to 'elp your daughter, Mr. T," she murmured, soft, quiet.

This time, Todd was eager to do as she said. If only to avoid another odd moment like that. He unwound his arms from around Johanna for Lovett to tend to, a spider uncoiling its precious catch from his web. The woman kept her head lowered as she tugged at the girl's sleeves, keeping the sheet of bright, cherry red in her cheeks well concealed. He saw it, of course- it was the fact that he ignored it which saved both of their necks.

It took quite a struggle to remove Johanna's dress. Her dead arms made it nearly impossible to shrug the sleeves from her shoulders. After she slipped the moldy clothing down and folded it passed Johanna's waist, Mrs. Lovett was forced to stand in order to wrench the skirts from her legs while clutching the hems. But once that had been accomplished, and the scratchy, wool dress was a heap atop the stained throw rug, the girl burrowed her face into the side of her father's neck with a comfortable sigh. The thin chemise, strewn with holes, clung to every sharp curve of her body. Each bone jutted from beneath her skin like sharp razor blades. It was a sheet of white around a naked skeleton.

They worked from bottom to top, staring with the girl's shredded feet all the way to her soiled hair. The soft skin between the balls of her feet and heels was littered with shards of broken glass due to her flight through the city. Mrs. Lovett had particular difficulty plucking the debris from her skin, but found her nails to be a resourceful substitute for tweezers. She dabbed a towel into the bucket of water, that stung the girl like a thousand jabbing needles, and rubbed the oozing pricks in her skin clean.

As Lovett worked at that, Todd focused on Johanna's upper body-her face and hair to begin with. After positioning her so that her head was plopped against his lap, the barber steadied the bucket against his knee, grasped the sides of Johanna's head, and soused her hair in the water. He swirled her thick locks around with his hands, weaved the layers between his fingers. He combed out the dirt and grime until it slivered and pooled in the liquid like ink. He wrung her hair when he had finished, dousing his trousers, and set her flat on the quilt. The smears of dirt swirled in circular patterns and dripped down her skin like dirty tears as he rubbed her face. Then, he turned his attention to her arms, and he handled her bandaged wound like he would a baby-with care, hesitancy.

Mrs. Lovett slipped a hand beneath the girl's shift, grimaced at the caked blood on the girl's knees that crumbled like crusted dirt, but kept herself quiet. She wiped at it until the blood on her skin was a light a faded, washed-out brown, a light pink, gone...

The work was finished within the hour. Mrs. Lovett departed to retrieve Johanna a dress, stating that anything she selected would "slip off of her as easily as a dress would a lamp post. " He had asked her to try, for Johanna, and the baker-enslaved by her own damned devotion-fussed with her wardrobe after slipping from the room. She tossed aside her worn garments because they were too stretched out; her new clothes simply 'wouldn't do' because the newest dress she owned was the one she had inherited for Albert's funeral. She discarded the dark, black gowns because Johanna deserved something more cheerful; she hid the pastels because Lovett feared Johanna would look too much like Lucy clad in soft, rosy pinks or crisp, sky blues.

She reached a medium-a solid, brown dress she had bought for her scarce days of leisure, well over two decades ago. It was not too plain; it had a pretty scoop that exposed the throat, a lacy set of skirts that swirled in the air. Lovett had no use for it; it had grown tight when her the pregnancy had progressed, and surely twenty years had slammed some weight onto her. The dress clothed memories now. _Perhaps a dress that brings out the worst, _she supposed_, will serve for the best. _She threw the dress over her wrist, advanced from her room, and panted into the adjacent one_-Funny how a simple gown has a chance at redemption, and I'm left stranded up shit's creek without a paddle._

It had slipped onto Johanna as the baker predicted, like a potato sack flung over a twig. A dress fit for a normal woman hung loose from her bones, sagged as if saturated with water. It was warm, though, and its cloth was soft.

Johanna had sighed, contented, and grinned slightly when she felt herself pulled tighter in her father's arms, closer to his chest. In response, she groped for his long, coarse hands as he stared down at her, brow gathered into a thoughtful set of wrinkles, his eyes turbulent, yet loving. She may have been asleep, but her mind seemed conscious.

Lovett had left them when the silence bared nothing for her _but_ silence. She was accustomed to speaking, but at the time, she really had nothing to say. The subtle glow of happiness in her barber brought her a smidge of joy, so she departed while the mood was still mild. Besides, the sailor had knocked on the door a good dozen times in the past five minutes, choking on his wild sobs, begging to see Johanna. She had to tame the sailor and face his hurricane of inquiry, yet her true motive was to crack open a bottle of gin-the one she never received-and guzzle it down to the last drop.

And she knew that her absence would either be ignored or appreciated.

Sweeney Todd sat alone with his daughter held to him, the metal bars digging into his back, and the heat of her body a sign of life-surely this was heaven. Surely the two of them were dead, together.

But then his eyes would skim over her tainted scalp, or the grey rings around her eyes, the protruding bones in her cheeks, the ribs that churned sickness in his stomach. And then he knew it was certainly _not_ heaven. The only thing that would ever represent heaven was this angel that had flown into his home.

When he felt her little face rustle against his shirt, looking up at him, and gazed down into those dark blue eyes, he felt a contradiction arise. Was this a punishment or a gift?

She reached up to touch him, to graze his skin with her fingertips. Her raw, bumpy lips widened into a small smile.

"My angel."

**A/N: Tears. If you found enjoyment in this little reunion scene, grace we with a review. Thanks, everyone.**


	43. Chapter 43

**Chapter 43**

After those two spoken words, words that carried too many emotions to count, Todd simply pressed his lips on her forehead, closed his eyes, and ignored the moist sting of forming tears.

He felt her face dig deep into his shirt, heard the soft cries that came out as a mixed sound, stifled by the cotton. From it all, he detected '_papa_' and '_missed'_. The remainder of the sound was swallowed up, completely lost to her tiny cries. But the meaning was there - loud and clear, as if it had been screamed at the top of her lungs.

From the utter torment of it all, Todd could only reply, "Gibbons."

Johanna shot a curious frown at him, certain that the word had to have held some significance. Her father rarely said anything that held little meaning, she remembered.

"The man," he explained, "that you worked for in the colony...The older one..." Todd avoided her eyes, averted his own to an adjacent wall - an absent gaze that held so much. "His name was Davey Gibbons. He told me to tell you before..." _Before I shattered his chest with a bronze bullet._

The girl released an unstable breath. "I r-r-remember." She offered him a grin, one that twisted his heart in jagged, staggering spirals. "You're a good man, papa."

His stomach seemed to fill with rocks, it felt like one of his own razorblades was lodged in his throat. "Am I?" he said, without the intent on being answered.

"Yes." Her twiggy arms snaked around his neck as she kissed his cheek over and over. When the motions became too taxing and Johanna's breath was degraded to choppy gasps, Sweeney set his daughter flat upon the bed. He hovered by her side staring down at his little lady, the small resemblance of his one love and yet a larger reminder of his true self - Benjamin Barker. To say the least, this chain of thought perturbed him.

He turned away to hide his frown, but Johanna mistook it for his untimely departure.

"Don't leave!" she cried as she stretched her arms towards him to be touched, to be held. She choked and sniveled, coughed, and her stomach lurched with liquid.

On instinct, the man leaned in, tucked her body against him and whispered, "No, my love, I'll never leave you again." He rubbed circles on her knotted back until her dry heaves subsided.

She squeezed her arms tight around his neck, _tight, tight, tight,_ until there was a dull throb in her muscles. He did not seem to mind it, though. In fact, his lips formed into the smallest of smiles, his eyes shined with the dimmest of stars. It was like watching a broken soul slowly piece its life back together, fragment by fragment. Truly a miracle.

The moment thrived and the moment died. The protective, worrisome father took possession over Sweeney Todd. He said one thing, one simple phrase, and Johanna's heart crashed to her feet. "An asylum?" he whispered. It was a question that sought no answer, but begged a different truth.

Johanna shook her head and leaned forward to kiss his shirt collar. "None of it matters, papa. You're with me now."

He twiddled stray hairs between his fingers, swirled them in his palms like bunching up string. She was quiet and he was quiet. There was not much to say.

"Hungry?" he tried after a long silence.

"I'm fine, father." She smiled against the downy shirt. Even though she had not looked directly at him, she sensed a frown on her father's bloodless lips.

"You have to eat something, Johanna." He pulled her away, and she could no longer hide her own frown, her own tears.

"No, papa, no," she mumbled as she went to bury herself in his arms again. His firm hands kept her at bay.

Tilting her chin towards him, he said, "Look at me."

It was then she had realized she was avoiding his eyes. And when she did as he said, she felt the full force of her nausea crash into her chest, her throat, her stomach. She could not breathe, she could not even hope to think. But her gaze never altered.

"Why did those _men _put you in an asylum?" he said over her quiet sniveling. His eyes were ablaze, his face was straining to be gentle.

"Because I was daft," she said against her arm as she wiped the wetness from her cheeks and upper lip.

"And you believe that?" he muttered.

She nodded.

Todd fell quiet and his face held something that resembled disgust, anger.

Johanna's eyelids scrunched closed and, at the same time, she chomped down on her tongue so that the pain in her heart was outweighed by the blood in her mouth. "Father," she wheezed, not quite expecting him to respond. The look on his face before she had closed her eyes had been enough to dissuade anyone. But she handpicked enough fragments of her shattered courage to look at him. Her heart beat like a hammer on her collarbone.

Not to her surprise, his dark, hateful eyes brushed over hers, to the bed sheets, to the door. She had seen that look before - when she had been too frightened to speak about the Judge that night in the barracks. When her father had begged her to tell him the secrets of her past, had spoken of his own torture to stir some sort of response out of her.

His repulsed expression matched her own thoughts: She was pathetic.

"Please, father," she stroked his arm, elbow to wrist, then curled her fingers around his palm. "Don't be angry. I'll do anything you want me to do."

He turned again to look at her, face built with enough stone to crush her. He wriggled his hand free of her feeble grasp, ignored her pathetic jumble of pleas, and stormed over to the door. It closed behind him with an unintentional _bang_.

The scattered utensils on Mrs. Lovett's countertop jingled as the slammed door caused the house to shiver. The woman stared about the room, startled, then gave a tired grimace as the barber's footsteps approached her shop. She sighed, swabbing the countertop with a spotted rag. Circles of food scraps and moist dirt caked the surface.

"Lovett."

She wished to ignore him, to show the man that her resistance to him was not much of a resistance at all-it was second nature. Lord, she longed for him to see that she could be as nonchalant with him as she was with one of her customers, or even her husband. She wanted him to feel neglected, to crave her attention. But his gruff, tangled voice simply hissing her name made her stomach drop and her voice shoot to her lips. "What can I do for yeh, love?" _Nice to know, _she would later think_, that my own body conspires against me. Bloody wonderful. _

"Johanna..."

Mrs. Lovett froze at the mention of the girl's name.

"She has to eat something." Mr. Todd's tone cracked, as if he wanted to shout or cry.

"Course," her hands had already begun lifting cups and shifting baking sheets to the side with ear-splitting clatters. "I could give 'er some...pie?"

"I'm assumin' it's regular meat, Mrs. Lovett." The words alone were a threat. No sorrow there.

"Yeh haven't given me anythin' else to work with, " she replied, ensuring her tone was just as brisk as his had been. To avoid having a meat cleaver smashed against her skull, she added, "And yes, regular ol' meat."

"That's wonderful," he spat. "Don't give it to her.

The woman's hands stopped working, midair. "Why not?"

He scowled, as if he thought her the stupidest person to have walked the earth. "She'll get sick. She's starved and malnourished. Her stomach won't be able to hold anythin' that large...," shifting a few feet forward, he ran his eyes over bowls of clumpy gravy, "...or that filling..." He finally looked at her. "Yeh got any bread?"

"I started to make a loaf earlier today. Should take a 'alf hour to bake." Without awaiting an answer, she bent behind her counter and collected a baking sheet. On top was a wad of risen dough, ready for baking. She punched it a few times, whispered, "The yeast made it rise quicker," and molded it into shape. She indicated the mass of dough with her powdered finger, ready for her partner's approval.

He nodded, shifted a butcher knife by the handle so that the smooth blade was pointing away from the edge.

The baking sheet moaned against the rusty grating as she slipped it into the small kitchen oven. The door squealed shut.

"There yeh are. Anythin' else?" the baker asked, slapping her hands together as flour puffed from her hands like smoke from a pipe.

"Milk?"

"It don't come cheap, Mr. T," she propped her chin in her palm, her elbow onto the counter, "but yes, I do." When he neglected to praise her for her _selfless _sacrifice - All Hail Saint Lovett! - the woman continued speaking. "You're thinkin' it'll coat her stomach?"

Another nod. Another dull, lifeless, awkward silence.

There was a light brushing sound from the parlor room, the sound of faltering feet, and then a soft, wet sniffle; a shaky breath. Mrs. Lovett knew it was Johanna walking to the kitchen, and she told herself not to be startled when the morbid, skinny thing would appear in the doorway. But her body gave an involuntary jolt when the girl did poke into sight - as ghastly as a walking corpse, as frightening as an apparition in the corner of her eye. There was something beautiful, though; a delicate radiance to her. Perhaps the terror in her large eyes made her face shine, or the wash of light brown in her disheveled, blonde hair gave her a highlighted beauty. Maybe it was the thought that this child resembled so much of her father that instilled such splendor; the idea that a tiny child resembled the man who had robbed the baker of a heart, hidden it away, and kept with him for fifteen long, barren years.

The whole, unadulterated love in those wide eyes stirred an unfamiliar pain in the baker. Johanna limped to her father, arms drawn towards him, only for him. Of course, the hate in his eyes subsided and he rushed to meet her midway. He supported her with an arm around her waist as she collapsed against his side, wiped her teary eyes on his shoulder while he gazed over at her with dark, adoring eyes. Maybe he, too, was still trying to register the idea of having his daughter in his home. _With_ him.

"Alright, love, yeh need to sit down now." The woman smiled as she led Johanna to a booth, her father close by. She hoped neither of them had seen how fake her smile had been, how mortified she was to feel the sharp bone of the girl's shoulder prodding out like a knife handle beneath her skin. "Those cuts on your feet must be killin' yeh."

The girl's legs ran parallel to the edge of the table. Her smile was small - which was a thousand times more genuine than Lovett's - and tears brimmed on the pink, swollen edges of her eyes. One escaped, trailed down her pale, bruised cheek, and splattered onto the shop floor.

Mrs. Lovett buckled under her own pity. "Oh, no need for that, love! No tears here!" If only she had told _herself_ that more often...

As the girl shook her head and cupped her face into her palms, the quiet tears grew into soft weeping. Her shoulders shrank like they carried the weight of the world, and her father seemed too lost in his own thoughts to do anything but stroke her dark scalp, whisper empty words to hush her. He looked ashamed that he could not dry her tears, angry that he had no mother to offer to his own daughter, and _infuriated _that he had allowed one man to ruin both of their lives to such an extreme. The sky outside had begun to weep and Mrs. Lovett thought God was mourning for the two of them. Sweeney only saw it as rain and he scowled.

It was a pitiful sight to look at; too pitiful, in Lovett's opinion. She hauled her skirts over her knees, revealing bright, pastel knickers, and knelt to the floor. Above her, Todd cleared his throat and threw his gaze to the corner of the room. The woman ignored his discomfort and wrapped both arms tight around the girl. Both of Johanna's hands fell from her eyes and balled into fists against Mrs. Lovett's shoulders as she cried, racking both of their bodies with her wounded wails.

The baker could feel Todd's eyes staining the back of her head but, for once, she could not have given two damns. Unless they were directed towards a certain Judge and Beadle.

After a half an hour of sobbing - until Johanna had to cling to Mrs. Lovett for stability - Anthony staggered into the room, ruffling his hair into place and smoothing out his clothing, wrinkled from sleep. He muttered a groggy word, a slurred apology, and when he caught sight of his beloved, he shed his fatigue and hurried to her side. His side slammed into the edge of the booth's table, he mouthed a curse as he battled the pain, and bit his lip. "Is she alright, Mr. Todd?" he said, teeth clenched.

_Does she look alright?_ "Yes, boy, she's better now." The barber stroked the bare crook of her neck, felt how the strained muscles under her skin were as thick as rope. He wiped her hot, wet cheeks and trained his eyes on her head - still rested on Lovett's shoulder.

"Mr. Todd, words cannot even begin to express my gratitude. If there's anything you need, anything at all, name it and it shall be done, or let me never sail again." The boy shifted to grasp his free hand, limp like a dead branch at his side, but frowned as Todd withdrew it. Anthony brushed off the rejection, as he had grown accustomed to doing. "You shall be forever in our hearts when we have departed, sir." His eyes lightened when he glanced at the baker. "You as well, ma'am."

But she did not smile back.

Like a burst of energy, Todd gripped his side-holster and towered over Anthony's frame. "You will not be taking her anywhere!" Unlike his previous, black-out rages, this one was not stalked with an immediate wave of shame. It raged on like a wave of fiery hell, a twister that uprooted the tallest of trees.

Anthony shrugged past the barber, but kept his body directed at him as he made a wide arc towards the left. "Of course, sir, not yet. But once she has been cured, surely you'd allow me to-"

"Take her? Never! I'll slaughter the next man who so much as tries." His body swooshed with ice, his mind raced with threats that the sailor had summoned, his chest burned like hell.

"Mr. Todd! We had an agreement! Why would you-_how_ could you?"

"Because," Johanna lifted her face from the baker's hold, voice clear, "I don't want to go."

Anthony stumbled under the push of her words. "Don't want to go? Johanna, I thought we had a plan! Paris, marriage-don't you remember?" As the boy rambled on with his passionate plea, Todd faced his daughter with a foot advanced, ready to pounce. He doubted Anthony would ever dream of hurting his child, but his sense of perception had been so twisted over the damned years - like a good habit turned into his largest flaw-and he began to wonder. So he left nothing to chance, and readied his body for anything.

The boy caught a glimpse of his friend's stance, paled, and advanced towards Johanna with a hand raised to ensure his innocence. He eased onto his knee beside Lovett, like a proposing suitor, and reached for Johanna.

Mrs. Lovett sighed and stood erect, allowing him full access to the girl before she stationed herself next to the barber. She, too, noticed the man's balanced shoulders and foreboding frown, and she glared hard at the dusty floor planks after another deep sigh.

"Please, love, I cannot bear this place any longer." Anthony cupped her chin with his finger, tried at ignoring the two adults beside him, watching his every move with eyes as wide as paper cuts. Johanna met his stare, too dried up to cry anymore. But that did not mend the shattered, apologetic look in her eyes.

She really did care for the boy.

"Anthony, please, listen to me." He nodded. "I can't go anywhere with you. I can't leave him," she glimpsed at her father, then shifted her eyes back towards the boy. Her stark face was a whole array of emotions - sorrow, guilt, penitence, affection-but there were no words that could deliver half of the sentiment than that of her poor, sorry glance.

Todd noted it was not a '_woe-is-me'_ stare, but an innocent, loving one. The barber had never dreamed of seeing that look on her face unless it was directed towards _him_. Sweeney folded his arms and bit back his jealousy, the bloody parasite that it was.

"You mean that...you can't leave...Mr. Todd?" Anthony sucked a deep breath in between his cheeks until they inflated and let it out with an airy chuckle. "I've left my dove alone for little over a few hours and she has already found my replacement?" His words were bitter and dejected, the sting sweetened with phony laughter.

Johanna, her face a rosy pink, replied in a more stressed tone, "I have not replaced you. I could never! But you cannot ask me to simply leave my-"

"I am not asking you to leave him, Johanna. Though you've only known him a day and now you wish to spend your life with him, I-"

"I've known him far longer than that, Anthony!"

"That isn't possible. I haven't a clue why you would think so." His face was shadowed with concern - pursed lips, wide eyes. "What did they do to you in that asylum?" His head snapped towards the two adults. "What did they do to her, Mr. Todd?"

Johanna tried to rub the ache from her skull, but to no avail. Her head still burned, and the tears that would not fall seemed to tug on her eye sockets. "Who's Mr. Todd?" she said. Her eyes tore through the group of people in the shop as if awaiting a silhouette to spring forth and identify himself.

No one moved.

Anthony, for the first time, released a real chuckle as he pointed out the barber. "Why, he's Mr. Todd, Johanna. Lord, I think it'd be best you knew the identity of the one man you claim to never be able to part with."

The girl stared at her father, her eyes racing from left to right as she searched her mind for an explanation. The man shifted feet, pitched his gaze towards the far corner, and muttered, "Alias," under his breath.

Both the sailor and girl heard the word, but only one of them discerned its relevance. Johanna gave a shaky nod, as if gravity was taking her head between two bulky hands and squeezing. Her attention focused once more on Anthony Hope. She slipped her palm over his cheek - his young face was burdened with questioning - and he smiled slightly when she turned his face towards her's.

He whispered, "Johanna, you know I love y-"

"Mr. Todd is my father."

The boy wavered, back and forth, teetering from his heel to the balls of his feet. He opened his mouth to say something, emitted a kind of squeak, snapped his teeth back together, and then proceeded to look at Mr. Todd. He sniffled through his nose, released another unstable breath. "Father..." His eyes closed and opened, slow, like prying open a pair of aged windows. Like it pained him to face the world. "_Your_ father."

Johanna could not bear to speak, ashamed of her own voice. She nodded and her eyes retreated from his. "I met him...before I met you, Anthony. The," she swallowed hard, "well, you-know-who, took me away from him and this is the first time I am seeing him...after so long...and I thought that you wouldn't understand-"

"You didn't trust me, Johanna?" The hurt in his voice! God, she might as well have killed him in the asylum rather than run from him.

"I was scared," she spat out the words, shut her eyes tight, "I was scared, scared, scared! I'm_ still_ scared! I only wanted my papa, Anthony,_ please_, Anthony." Arms wrapped around her, but they were not her father's. They were slight, yet they had a string of fair muscles trailing under his skin. They were soft, free of calluses and scars. They were warm. They were gentle.

She first thought the boy was hugging her. Then she poked her eyes over his shoulder and noticed she had fallen forward in her seat, either in the heat of her rants or the exhaustion of the result. Strange, she thought, that she did not remember falling, or even losing a trace of consciousness, and there she was, supported from slamming her head onto cold wood.

He shifted her backwards, and Mr. Todd handled the rest. The barber slid both hands to her ribcage and hoisted her back onto the seat, looked directly into her confused eyes. "You need to get back into bed."

She was too tired to argue. She could hear the pursuing conversation, though - clear as a crisp, fall wind.

"I suppose you want me to leave, Mr. Todd," said Anthony.

Johanna went to mumble a protest, her thick tongue swallowing up her words. She moaned in frustration and that, too, was muffled against her father's shoulder. Her neck strained when she sat straight to look at her father, and he stared back even after their silent conversation had ended.

"You've helped us both, son," the barber murmured, "more than I can say. I can't make you leave after all this. She doesn't want it." He gave the girl's wrist a small squeeze. "_I _don't want it."

"Then what _do_ you want, Mr. Todd?" The boy bent forward to cup one of Johanna's hands, his gaze trained on his barber companion.

"I want you to stay and convince her to go back to bed, boy. She won't listen to me."

A playful smile - a blissful one, at that - brightened both of the children's faces. Anthony sprang to his feet, pride bulging in his chest, and said, "Come, Johanna." And though he looked happier than any other man in the world, happier than a rich man wallowing in piles of gold or a fish floundering in the chuckling sea, questions still burdened his eyes.

Todd's head began to ache. _Why shouldn't the boy be confused? He and his daughter had not clarified their initial meeting at all! Would the poor lad be pleased to know that the two of them had been convicts when they first met?_

"To think, all this time, I've been in love with my best mate's daughter!" Anthony laughed. "I knew there was a similarity between the two of you!" The sailor did well in ridding his eyes of uncertainty - or at least hiding it. He looked hopeful instead, hopeful that he would gain some answers as time went on and their trust progressed. Hope was a good thing to have, a wonderful idea to cling to. It seemed to help Anthony a great deal.

"And every time you mentioned a Mr. Todd, I hadn't a clue who you were talking about." Johanna answered, grinned, and looked Todd's way, "And I really can't sleep after all this fuss! Tell me, father, are you a barber again? Do you live in our old home?" Just then, the expression dulled out, washed to a tired white, the joy drawn from her lips. A frown was all that remained. "Where's mother?" she whispered, and it was a horrified sound. She did not want to know the truth, yet she burned for it.

The man's throat closed in and ached, like a thousand, angry wasps were trapped in his neck, stinging the holy hell out of him. "Your mother..." It was an echo, not a response. He glared at her beautiful face, only to turn to Mrs. Lovett for some sort of support.

She had the right to ask for her mother.

But what answer had he to give her?

"Your mother..."

Johanna seized his wrist, her eyes large with panic - two globes of white and root-like streaks of red. "Did you find her, papa? Is she alright?" Her hands had shot up to his collarbone, resting there while she leaned closer to him.

He would have held her then and there, embraced her only because she was so close to him. But his gaze had trained on the empty space beside her; his mind had become overwhelmed without thoughts, but with pain. Pure, coursing, writhing pain. An electric nerve in his temple jerked. "Boy," he muttered to Anthony, "take her upstairs to the shop. She's not seen it before." He avoided direct eye contact with everyone, especially Johanna.

"Mr. Todd?" Anthony began to object, seeing that Johanna was not compliant with her father's wish. She ripped her arm away from the boy when he went to lead her to the stairs; she whimpered, "No," when he begged her to go with him.

The man finally turned to look at his daughter, laced his fingers with hers, and whispered, "Do as I said."

She looked between him and Anthony, beseeching the two of them to reconsider. She even looked towards Mrs. Lovett, a silent plea written in her eyes. There was no response from any of them. Defeated, Johanna took Anthony's hand and stood. Both of them departed up the stairs after her one last glance at Mr. Todd. He had not seen it.

"Mrs. Lovett," he said in his gruff voice, "I need gin."

"Do yeh really think that's a good idea, Mr. T?" Despite her words, she had already begun shifting towards the cabinet of alcohol and thick-glassed tumblers.

"I don't think anymore," he hissed, his following words louder for her to hear, "I need it, Lovett. I'm fuckin' shaking..."

After blinking like she had dust caught in her eye, Mrs. Lovett hurried to obey his command. The alcohol tasted strong, smelled strong - hell, it even looked strong! - and Sweeney downed it in one. He bared his teeth at the taste, slammed the glass to the table. "Another."

She poured him another round. He kicked his head back and swallowed a mouthful.

"Another." Down. "Another." Down.

It was beginning to feel like her first encounter with Toby, when the lad had drunk himself into unconsciousness. She even tried the same approach she had used with the child. "That'll go straight to your head, dear."

He swooshed the dregs of his drink with a circling motion of his wrist, silent.

"Don't yeh think yeh should be with Johanna? I'll bring up her food when it's ready, Mr. T-"

His face gave way, displayed a frown of pain, hurt eyes. "She wants to know where her mother is."

The baker slid her thumbs to the flat edge of the table. "Oh..." she simply said. "Well, don't tell her _that_...Not yet."

"You'd be fine with lying to _your_ daughter. But me?" He wrenched the bottle beside Mrs. Lovett's lifeless fingers and poured himself a glass. "I could never."

"Tell her yeh can't talk about it yet."

"She'll hate me for that."

Mrs. Lovett's lip twitched into a half-grin. "She could never hate yeh. Even if she wanted to." Her pause was considerate. "Show 'er the picture of Lucy."

His eyes sought her out, his hands fell to the table and abandoned the empty glass. The two stared at each other for at least a few minutes, each of them relaying their own, hidden message to the other. It was not long before the barber voiced the significance of his glance. "Thank you."

He stood to his feet in a hurry, made for the stairs. As he passed by his partner, he made certain to slip a hand onto her shoulder and stroke his thumb over her skin. Her heart - her old, sick heart - trembled. Within those two words, he had expressed his gratitude for more than her suggestion. It was for her support, for her help, for her devotion.

Two words, and he had given her life. And when he left her, ascending the stairs to his barber shop, he had snatched it right back.

Upstairs, Johanna and Anthony were situated before the large shop window, staring out at the city that lay beyond their reach, distorted by misty fog and misshaped glass. The girl seemed far more entranced by the view - her life had consisted of this. But Anthony was far more entranced when he observed Johanna's awed eyes. He remembered a time he was once like her; wondering and innocent, even when the world, the world he had neglected to see, burned around him. Enflamed. But he saw, now. The world was a pit of insanity, it was a home for hate. Corruption hidden behind a gavel, whispered secrets with denied answers.

And an innocent girl in the midst of it all.

He saw why men had found such an attraction to her. She was the sole image of virginal innocence - flawless complexion, wide eyes, soft skin. But after all of these horrid trials, after being locked in a prison for the insane, the prison of Turpin's home, how did she remain so poised? Was it possible that there was a frown beneath her pink lips, or a glare beneath her gentle gaze? Was it possible that a bit of anger could have been rubbed into her?_ Hate, even_?

Anthony did not like the idea, not one bit.

At that point, Sweeney Todd's steps sounded from the outside, and both children gazed towards the sound. Johanna's eyes smiled as her father entered the shop, as the two of them shared the briefest of glances. It was strange to him, so strange to see his daughter standing before _his _window in _his_ shop. Strange and wonderful - electrifying. He was slowly coming together again.

"Sir," Anthony acknowledged Todd with a respectful nod of his head. The action sent strands of soft, light hair across his eyes.

The barber set himself beside Johanna, a slight smile of his own taking form. "Do you like it?" he whispered as he placed an arm around her.

She only stopped looking at him to glance around at the room. "I like the window," she ventured.  
"And the razors are beautiful."

"Beautiful," he repeated, absent-minded. He stroked the sharp accent of her jawbone, then gathered a sense of perception. "Thank you, lad," he directed his voice to Anthony. "If you wish to stay-"

"If it's all the same to you, Mr. Todd, I think I'll return to my Inn for the night." Anthony winked at Johanna in an attempt to ease her worries. "I'll be back tomorrow, if I am permitted." His face fell as he glimpsed at Todd. "I have a lot to think about."

The man released his daughter, strut forward, and propelled Anthony to the door, his face the usual, blank expression. "That you do," he said in a low tone, too quiet for Johanna to detect.

Facing the barber, Anthony's whisper was sharp and harsh. He practically hissed the words at the older man. "I should like to know how you two met, Mr. Todd." He cocked a brow at Johanna. "And I do request the permission to visit your daughter regularly."

"Yes, yes," Sweeney wrenched the shop door open, "you know you already have it."

"Will you give me answers, though? Don't you think I am entitled?"

"You're more than entitled. I'm just not ready to give 'em."

"At least answer this," Anthony tried, louder this time as he was ushered out of the shop. "Why didn't you tell me she was your daughter?"

At this, three possible answers formulated in Todd's mind. The first - _I was uncertain if I could trust you, son_. The second - _I could not let that be known to anyone, boy_. And the third - _A father knows best, bugger off. _

He chose the third, and lightened the blow with assurance. "When the time comes, I'll tell you everything. Not now, Anthony. Come back tomorrow." To avoid being _completely_ disrespectful, the barber waited for Anthony to sulk down the stairs before shutting the shop door behind him. His ears were not as strained by the hanging bells on the door panel as they had been before.

Before he could even face his daughter, another set of heavy feet had begun resounding of the stairs, like boulders dropped on wood. When a black coat, white shirt, and gloved fingers filled the door's window frames, Johanna gave a short gasp. The stranger knocked, open the door without invitation, and beamed at the two of them.

Johanna's gasp was molded into a fit of soft giggles.

"Ah, little lady, back from the dead!" exclaimed John. After beating Todd on the shoulder with a huge, stone palm, the ex-con thundered over to Johanna and swallowed her up in a large bear-hug. He smelled of cologne and cherry tobacco, a foreign scent, when she had been so accustomed to convict men smelling of earth and sweat.

"Careful," Sweeney muttered as he came up to the two of them, "you'll break her."

The girl wriggled her feet - which were dangling in the air as her body was smashed against John's concrete chest - and lost her breath to the suffocation of the embrace and her own laughter. "John, oh, God!"

"Not God, love, though I do try." John set the girl on her two feet, and Sweeney rushed to support her as she wobbled unsteadily. "Kill me if I ever do try to pass up God!" He chuckled and nudged Johanna in the cheek with his fist, a fist of rocks for knuckles and stalactites for fingers. "Sorry for the delay, Ben. When I returned home, the good woman thought I'd been picked up by the law. Spent hours sobbin' and scoldin' me, she did. Then we spent some time makin' up for my bad behavior-"

Sweeney clutched both of Johanna's shoulders, glared at the man over her head, and muttered, "Lovely," with an acidic smile.

A sheet of red cloaked John's cheeks like someone had doused his face in cherry juice. He stared at his feet like a reprimanded child. "Forget that last bit," he said, then returned his happy, broad smile towards the girl. "But how's my little lady been? I gotta say, yeh 'ad me worried sick, yeh did. What with passin' out like that!" He crossed his chest, eyes widened and pupils shrunken in a comic moment of terror. He dropped the facade and returned to bellowing, "But 'ere yeh are, alive, laughin', lookin' more and more like an angel each second. "

She giggled again and turned to grin at her father. "I'm glad _he _hasn't changed much..."

"Not a bit. Still a scoundrel, a criminal of an ex-convict." Ruffling her hair, John's eye fell to the dimming horizon. Nighttime paced the sky. "You slept quite a bit, didn't you? I dropped you off sometime in the early mornin'!" He glanced at Todd. "Is she alright?"

Dismay altered Sweeney's response. He opened his mouth, but closed it again. His eyes burned into his friend's - the idea of having a friend was still a bit unsettling - and then switched to the golden-framed picture of Lucy clutching a baby Johanna. He returned his stares to John, waiting to see if he had understood the wordless answer.

After switching his gaze to the picture a tenth time, John finally interpreted the message. His eyes really widened this time, his smile fell into a frown, and his face was shadowed-the sole image of sorrow. Both hands disappeared into the black pockets of his evening jacket.

"John, what's wrong?" Johanna said, her voice laced with concern. She stepped towards him, a hand on his arm, and flicked her eyes towards her father. When she saw both of their faces were one in the same, masks of melancholy, her voice rose with alarm. "What happened?"

"Nothing, dear, nothing." John eased a hand on her shoulder and began to walk with her to the door. "It's just that I think the two of yeh," his eyes fell on Mr. Todd, a penetrating stare, "need some time alone."

"Thanks," Sweeney said, uncertain if he wanted the man to remain so he would delay what had to be done, or if he wanted John to leave if only to face the inevitable and get it over with.

Johanna protested his untimely departure, to which John assured her he would return when need be. "And if yeh are just dying to see me again," his attempt at smiling was worthy of recognition, but a complete failure, " then yeh just stop by St. Dunstan's. Me and me family are always at the market."

He left with a solemn goodbye, and when the shop was out of sight, he fled home-to the arms of his fretting, adoring wife as she clucked her tongue and kissed his cheek. The man only wished the same could be said for Sweeney Todd.

Mrs. Lovett had delivered the food as promised, and was shooed out of the shop by a distressed Mr. Todd. He neglected to thank her, shut the door in her face, and hurried to feed Johanna the bread and milk. He sat her on the edge of his cot and displayed her meal, commanding that she eat slow until the very last crumb. To his relief, she did as he instructed and gnawed tiny bites into the bread, taking frequent sips of milk to ease her sickness. When she was through, she wiped her lips on her sleeve as her father deposited the tray on the table of pomade and shaving cream. The razors were settled in their velvet casing, glinting at him, wanting to be held, whispering...He found it easy to look away, more so after sending Johanna a half-smile in the mirror's reflection. When he returned to study the table, the smile banned from his lips like a putrid sin, he searched for one item in particular, the only answer he had that would solve his problems - Or, better yet, help mend the _aftershock_ of his problems.

He found it with ease - Lucy's picture - but carrying it over to his daughter, let alone holding it in his hand, devoured his strength.

The barber knelt to face his girl, and let the words come together in his mind before saying them. He had to use discretion, he had to be wise, no matter how much it pained him, no matter how much he longed to ignore it. This would either go accordingly or be blasted to hell. "You wanted to know where your mother is," he began, his fists rattling until he clasped one of the girl's hands. The contact sent heat through his body, eased his shaking hands.

But his words stirred complete dread in Johanna. She was silent, yet her eyes, pooling with terror, were shrieking - _Tell me! Tell me!_

"She isn't here..."

"She's dead..." The hand locked in her father's grip, stiffened and cooled like ice. The picture, too, began to feel cold and stiff, while in his hand, propped against his thigh.

His breath was faltering, unstable. A thick mist was clouding his mind, weaving in-between his thoughts-thoughts that were as fragmented as a jigsaw puzzle. His meaningful words had lost their meaning, his thought-out plan seemed not so thought-out. He was scared.

"What happened?" Johanna's words pinched into tiny sounds, threatened with tears "It was the judge, I know it..."

It was the name - _that _name! - that brought a glower to the barber's face. "The judge?" he growled.

"I saw her, papa, and she _knew_! She may have been the maddest woman in the world, but she knew she had a daughter. She held a doll, called it her baby, said people called her Lucy_...and then the Judge saw..."_ The answer was there, and it was left unsaid. Johanna no longer spoke because she did not have to.

The Judge had killed her mother.

And her father was left to tell his daughter the dreaded truth - the miserable, sickening, horrible truth. There was no mother to walk with, no mother to talk to, no mother to confide in, no mother to joke with, to laugh with, to cry with. There would never _be_ a mother.

Dead.

Johanna's body doubled over, bent at the waist. She looked like she was going to vomit, or she was suffering some sort of pain.

Sweeney settled on the fact that it was both. Pressing her against his shoulder, he set the photograph on top of the bed sheets, kept it clutched in his hand. "Dead 's when someone is buried...and forgotten," he said over her choking cries. She sounded like she was fighting, forcing back the urge to be sick and the approaching monsoon of tears. "But we won't forget her, Johanna." Her head was a dead weight in his hand as he looked into her red, soddened face. "She's alive here," pointing to his heart, he pressed the photograph into her fingers, rattled to the bone. "With her family."

The photo was a slip of grey in her watery eyes, and she spent several seconds blinking back tears and squeezing her eyes to slits in order to discern the silhouettes in the frame. It was the fair hair atop the woman's head that hushed her, that and the soundless smile on her lips, frozen in time. Johanna stroked the glass, as if by doing so, she was touching a piece of her mother; the pale skin, the jeweled eyes. Eyes that seemed to have caught a fragment of the sky and locked it into her gaze; a light, care-free expression that displayed not a trace of worry, but an abundance of love. Johanna skimmed the image of herself as a baby, and returned her hungry stares to the picture of her mother. She tried to discern a similarity between the face of this photographed angel and the beggar outside of the Judge's home. Perhaps something indicated the women were one person, deformed by the trials that life had handed to them. There was none; her eyes had long since faded, her lips were chapped, and her smile was an empty, coy grin as she spat profanity at the townspeople. And though Johanna had never spoken a word to this image of Lucy Barker, she locked the photograph into her mind, and decided that she would remember her mother the way she was portrayed-happy, amorous, and mothering.

But that did not ultimately stop her tears.

Softly, because she was tired and cried-out, Johanna leaned into her father as he settled himself beside her, as the night curtained the sky and drowned out the noise of day. He leaned into his wiry headboard while the gratings fingered his back. As he held his daughter to his chest, Johanna kept the photo close to hers, tears smudging the untouchable faces, exhaustion dulling the sharp outlines of Lucy's expression. The girl slept with her mother's eyes pressed into her mind, her father's scent of leather, shaving cream, and cologne ensuring her he was still there, that he would _always_ be there.

Outside, a nightingale resonated a warbling song, fell silent, and slumbered when sunrays peaked over the horizon.

**Please continue to review, all you readers. Your comments really make this worth it. (And though it seems like only yesterday I was posting this little comment, I'll say it again. Good luck on finals, to whomever it may concern!)**

**P.S. Happy B-day, Energy**


	44. Chapter 44

**Chapter 44 **

A week had come to pass. The days may have crawled by like months, the years lived in a single second, but it had been a week, and there was no denying that. Throughout that week, Johanna had grown accustomed to living with her father, though she had to battle a few adjustments. When she fell asleep in his arms - terrified to release him, fearing he would fade away as he had in her dreams - she would jolt awake as the sun rose, convinced that she was still in Botany Bay; convinced that every trial the Judge had forced upon her had been a dream all along. She would turn to her father, she would ask him where she was, and he would say, "You're home, Johanna. You can sleep as long as you want." And she would, content.

The contentment was short-lived. The girl was burdened with scruples when near her father, when she eyed his solid frame, his strong hands; and when her mind scurried away to the past, she grew frightened of him. He really was a sturdy man; she would not stand a chance against him...

And then, her father would catch her glimpses and give a reassuring, upward twitch of his lip - it would never be fit to be called a smile - but he would miss the significance of her staring. He could only assume that she was experiencing as much doubt as he was, and that thought did not put him out of his misery for even a god-granted second.

The nights were an entirely different ordeal. Nightmares seemed to compensate for Johanna's lack of torture every counting minute of her day. All horrors she could remember, even some she did not, would befall her in a single, nighttime terror: Her father would be gone, she would smell dusty floors, sweat, despair. Fingers would prod at her soul. Her screams would ring like shrieks in her mind, but escape as wheezes from her lips. It would take some time for Todd to hush her back in to a calm sleep, and a minute or two would pass before she again began to tremble against him, crying. It was horrible for a father to live with. It deprived him of a moment's peace, gouged out chunks of his sanity. And when Johanna would wake - prepared to work in the women's factories that were thousands of miles away from London - she would deny having any such dreams. She was lying, he _knew_ she was lying. Yet the both of them dismissed it. Most of the time, it was better to flee from the truth than to face it, to be marred by it.

But nothing was harder for Sweeney Todd than to try and father his daughter when she reminded him so sorely of Lucy, when he was clueless on how to be a proper parent, and when he had no mother to offer her at all. It was difficult, to say the least, after he had dug out his paternal instinct in a penal colony - of all places. They were not convicts anymore, he would think franticly, they were free citizens. And then the thoughts of the Judge an Beadle would smash into Todd's already cramped mind, reminding him that neither he nor his daughter were completely free.

Regardless, he shrugged himself into the family life, and simply nodded along when Mrs. Lovett spat out family plans like steam from a teapot nozzle.

It was a fall Sunday, blue skies painted with grey, the mist edging towards winter frost. Anthony had come to visit for the seventh time that week, one visit counting per day. He was planted beside Toby in the parlor, waiting for Johanna to descend the barbershop steps and join him in his sit-down. As he waited, he and Toby indulged in toothy grins and boyish humor. Their jokes were pointless, but the absence of purpose is what had brought the two together as friends. Sometimes they would arm wrestle, or discuss Anthony's sailing expeditions, or when their thoughts were submitted to a more wistful setting, they would discuss Toby's past. The child resisted names and dates, nothing that would give away too much about him, but the topic that softened his face and lit his eyes was his mother. He spoke of a simple, working-class woman - her throaty singing voice, her sudden death, and his deportation to the workhouse. Heartbreaking, but their conversations were like brushing the cover of a book, neglecting to open its flaps and skim through the pages. It was like Tobias Ragg had more of a story than anyone in all of London, and people judged him by his cover before reading into his soul.

That was what seized Anthony's attention and commenced their friendship.

By the end of Anthony's first visit, the two were inseparable.

"When's you're bonnie lass gonna come on down?" Toby chuckled as he propped his heels on the parlor table, showing off his pristine Irish accent.

Anthony smiled and cast a stare up at the ceiling. "I dunno, Toby. Just as long as she does, I'm alright."

"Aw, you're a softy," the lad said with an ear to ear grin, and he sent the ceiling a casual glance before twiddling his thumbs and cracking a joke.

On the second floor, Johanna sighed drowsily, uncurled herself from the ball of sheets she had made in her sleep. Her arm was pivoted in the air, like she was reaching out for something. She remembered that she fell asleep clutching her father's hand, and smiled before she opened her eyes to confirm his presence.

There he was, seated at her side, staring down at her with churning eyes, a contrast of their dark shade and the light of happiness. She hated to see such a conflict in her father, she loved that she supplied him with enough joy to tug him from his depression, as if she were hauling a sea-tossed man from the storm. Johanna cherished the fact that this time she could save her father, and not vice versa. He had protected her from physical harm and now it was her turn to shield him from the worst of his enemies: himself.

He did not say anything to her, not even a morning greeting. It was not usually his nature to say much, but when he saw her eyes staring into his, waiting for him to speak, he too, uttered a sigh. "Mornin'."

Johanna eased herself up and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. She kissed his cheek. "Good morning, papa."

"How're you feeling?"

"Better," she replied, referring to the previous night's incident. She had sobbed over her mother, giving no particular reason other than her absence, for the better half of an hour. Her father had held her through most of it, but later thought it better to send her to sleep with her hand locked in his. It had worked to his advantage, she had fallen asleep after a period of soft cries and sniffles. But his daughter's emotional outbursts irritated him, and added onto the list of reasons why he would never gain a full night's sleep. He was reduced to slumbering when he stood, waiting for the customer that would never come. (Mrs. Lovett insisted that they close both of their shops for the week. "Tut, Tut, Mr. T, yeh 'ave a little one to raise!") His body ran on the energy he derived from his emotions, not food or sleep or anything that a human man would crave. Though he felt human when he was with Johanna, he knew he was yet to become one.

Todd pulled her away at arm's length to study her for himself, perhaps because he did not take her word for it. Johanna was usually accustomed to suffering in silence; unless she was pummeled down by a hurricane of emotions, such as that of the previous night, and could do nothing but weep and shriek and demand and question. It was a battle between two extremes - her own reticence and utter break downs.

"Good," he stood, their hands still clasped," do yeh wanna eat, now?"

"As long as you come with me," she said as she threw her feet onto the side of the bed, hoisting herself to her feet.

He smiled. On the inside he screamed. "Always do."

Mrs. Lovett accosted the two of them with cheery greetings, smoothing Johanna' s hair, fussing with the sleeves of yet another borrowed dress - a navy color, lined with black buttons. Not too pastel, not too dark - and directing her to a seat, two hands pressed on the girl's shoulders. "The sailor boy's in the parlor with Toby," she said. "Yeh want somethin' to eat, love? No more pies for yeh, promise!"

Johanna paled a bit at a memory of her nibbling on a meat pie and nearly vomiting after the chunks of gravy and greasy crust had slipped down her throat. Her father was close to an untimely heart-attack.

Mrs. Lovett pitched another suggestion. "Porridge?"

If it was possible, Johanna's skin faded to a glass color, so clear, one could almost see the blood travelling through her face. "You mean skilly?"

Despite the girl's obvious horror, her father released a soft chuckle. The sound kindled an unfamiliar warmth in the room. "No, my love," he whispered while brushing her cheek with his knuckle, "not skilly."

Mrs. Lovett stared between the two of them - _Skilly? - _and hid her baffled frown. "Uhm, I'll hop to it, then." She fled to the back of her counter, a portion of her chirpy attitude coming back to her as she bustled around the kitchen.

"I'll be back in a moment," Todd said to his girl, finally withdrawing his hand from hers.

She snatched his wrist, her eyes as white as her face. "Where are you going?"

"Makin' sure the sign in the shop window says _closed_," he lied.

"You know it does, father."

He bit back a hissed reply. "Well, I'm going to make sure."

Johanna shook her head and prepared to stand. "Then I'm going with you."

Hands firm on her arms, he propelled her back into her seat. "No, you're not."

"But-But you can't simply leave me-"

"That's precisely what I'm doing."

Johanna's lips quivered, a sheet of tears filled her eyes. "You promised..."

A hand gripped his heart between two fingers and began to rip it along the center - along the silver, dotted line. "Only for a minute, Johanna. I just need to be alone for a minute."

"A minute is murder, papa."

He clamped his mouth shut and pried his arm from her. If Lovett had not told him a thousand times, then his own conscience had - Johanna needed to spend some time alone, without him. When a child was frightened of the dark, then the child had to be placed in a pitch-black room for at least five minutes per day, then ten, then twenty, then an hour; until the fear had been exorcized right out of them. It was essential that Johanna spend some time in that dark room, a place where her father was not there to cling to.

No matter how much he loved her, how much his heart ached and his conscience burned when he forced himself away from her, like a toddler in time-out, the better part of his reasoning knew he had to do it.

He locked his eyes on the space ahead of him, walked through the door, to his shop, and into his chair. He succumbed to a momentary black-out, the sound of a woman's laughter close to his ear, yet distant in his mind; the moans of wood beneath his feet as his legs jerked, as he dreamt of running from the shouts of men, the shots of their pistols. It was the creaking floor that awoke him out of his fragmented sleep, and when he inspected the spot beneath his boot, he realized that the foot of his chair was where his razors had been stowed away by Mrs. Lovett - tucked out of sight, forgotten...

He shuddered at the nostalgic direction of his thoughts. A moment away from Johanna seemed to have quite the impact on him.

Crouching on his heels, the barber fingered the unstable floor panel. He slipped his thumbs between the edge of the planks and lifted the wood, exposing the empty space once occupied by a cloaked, dusty box of shining razors. His hands patted down the vacant hole, ran across the wooden legs that kept the planks supported. Something crinkled beneath his palm, something that had fallen from between the two adjacent planks when he had lifted it. After bending forward, Todd lifted the object from the space, held it to the light, inspected it. In his hand was a piece of paper, spotted with age. The parchment was wrinkled after being wedged between wood for so long. The ink had faded to grey streaks as if it had been submerged in water, barely discernable.

It was not the age of the note that ensnared all of his attention. It was the recipient's name, scribbled in a muddled cursive - _My Benjamin_

Todd stood erect, heart bouncing off of his bones, and directed himself to the window. He raised the letter upward and decoded the faint words as sunlight poked through its worn texture. It read:

_My Benjamin, _

_They told me that I could not write to you. They said that any letters I sent would be tossed into the Thames. I have written you a note, anyway, and placed it beneath the floorboards of Johanna's nursery with hopes that when this horrible mess is sorted out, you and I can read it together. _

_My love, I am well aware of your innocence. The notion that you have guilt weighing on your head is both a burden on myself and our marriage. To say you are guilty of thievery would go against my solemn vow to honor my husband. Know that I believed everything you have said, nodded my head to every truth you swore to me. And if the truth is evident in my eyes, then it is only a matter of time before someone else will see it as well. Surely another will discover your virtue and send you back home to your wife, to the daughter whose first and only spoken word has now been 'papa'. She weeps for you. As do I. Your 'beauties' await your homecoming. _

_Judge Turpin has confronted me many a time, speaking of his repentance for your departure. I think that if I do confront him, and give him my oath as a gentlewoman, he will see the misjudgment in his sentencing and bring you home. I have the intention of speaking with him when the opportunity deems itself proper, though our dear Nellie has attempted to dissuade me from the idea whenever I may mention it. I think I shall have to do it without her consent, for I know that you are a subject that stirs tender emotions in the poor woman. Nonetheless, I think of Mrs. Lovett as a friend and request that we express our dearest appreciation when you return home. She has worked nonstop and cared for our daughter and myself, ensuring that we always stay an extra month even when the rent is long since due. _

_And not to worry, darling, I have kept your beautiful razors safe in our home. They stay close to me as a part of you. I hold them each night that I lie in our bed. The sheets still smell like you, you know. I think that if I refuse to wash them, they will always hold your scent, therefore always holding your memory until your return. I keep your razors, your clothes, your daughter, as a promise that you will come home, as you swore before your shipment. _

_If there is one thing I have learned from you, darling, it is that you always keep your word. _

_As the days go by, as our faces begin to peel from your mind, please remember me, my face, my unadulterated love for you. Remember your child, for she is the living proof of our bond. Remember your home; it is where we were destined to meet. Remember your promise ._

_Above all things, remember that I love you. I always will love you, always hold you as close to my heart as my breast allows, always teach our daughter that her father was a good man of good morals. I count the days until I can stare into your face, embrace you, kiss you. Benjamin Barker may have been taken from our home, but never from our hearts._

_You are only gone for the moment. _

_Yours, in devotion, _

_Lucy. _

The letter ended there, with no date or secondary notes. Just assurances, assurances, hope after goddamn hope. One promise simply following the next in a chase, a spiral of love that clashed into a short, unsatisfying end. It was the dream before the nightmare, innocence plastered there on paper, and the tragic end of Lucy Barker flicking to life in the barber's mind, alive like a moving picture. It was there in the delicate curve of her _o'_s, the gentle caress of his name with the tip of her quill - It was love. And there he sat, feeling the weight of that love on his shoulders like boulders, with the letter gripped loosely in his hand. This love hurt him, delivered a full image of his wife as he held a piece of her in his hand. He brought it to his nose, wishing that there would be a trace of vanilla and rose smeared onto the paper from her skin, or the imprint of her lips after she had sealed it away with a kiss that should have been for him.

It was blank, cold. But it was too much to crumple it into a ball and toss it into the street. He shoved it into the two-framed picture of his wife, snapped it closed with the paper jutting out from the edge like a white flower petal, and leaned against the backing of his chair.

Mrs. Lovett had to have known about the letter, she had used the space it was concealed in to stow away his razors. Todd noted to confront her over the matter only when Johanna was out of ear-shot. The girl could not handle anymore reminders of her mother, she was not strong enough for him to hand another blow to her just like that.

He sulked downstairs, rolled his shoulders to even out the stress in his muscles, and squeezed his eyes shut to dry them before he opened the bakery side-door.

The baker caught his eye first hand, which was hard enough to do because he was staring at the floor. Her eyes beamed at him, but her lips only reflected the expression in slight twitches and curves. It was a mysterious expression, like that of the Mona Lisa, and when she captured a glimpse of unshed pain in the barber's eyes, it was an expression of grief. Her eyes lost their fire, her lips, their wry grin. She turned to the children and seemed to feed off of their energy, enough life to stir a surge of good humor.

"Wait, what's your rush, what's your hurry, yeh gave me such a fright, I thought yeh was a ghost!" Mrs. Lovett chirped in iteration of their first meeting, her skirts swirled as she jumped from her seat. She skipped to Todd and guided him into the shop by his shoulders. He glanced up and noticed Johanna, Anthony, and Toby were all crammed into one booth, giggling at the scene displayed for them. It was a sole image of family life, the life he had entirely missed out on.

"Yeh 'ave any idea whose children these three are?" Lovett continued as she linked her arm with the barber's, a task that was like looping arms with a stick of drooping pie crust.

Todd's humor was as limp and dead as his body. "No, but I think I'll take that one." He gestured towards Johanna by flicking his hand. He tried at a smile, but received a grimace, even when mulling over the baker's display of caricature in his mind.

"Dearie, Mr. T's found an interest in yeh!" Lovett meandered over to the table, slipped her hand to Johanna's, and turned her over to the barber.

The girl shrieked, but gave in, laughing as she was driven into her father's solid frame. He did not waver against the pressure, he stood straight like a block of concrete. He roped his arms around both of her shoulders before she would collapse to the ground. She looked up at him, joy sprinkled in her eyes like a bubbling brook. "Hello there, Mr. Todd."

He met her gaze briefly as his worst fear enveloped: Looking at his daughter and seeing his wife. She wounded him, grazed the healing cuts in his soul and ripped them open again, beckoning fresh blood.

"Little Johanna was just tellin' me she 'as never been to St. Dunstan's before! Can yeh believe that?" Mrs. Lovett snaked next to them and stared as they simply gawked into each other's eyes. "Yeh think we should take 'er?"

He finally spared the woman a glance, a glance filled with warning. "I don't think-"

"That's the problem right there," she pointed out. "Yeh don't think. Perhaps if yeh did, you'd realize that your little lady over 'ere hasn't seen the city for all of her life...Well, the good parts of the city, at least...I say we all go. The poor thing needs a little fresh air, anyway," she twiddled a lock of golden hair.

"And what if she's recognized? What if the Judge is there?" Todd hissed over the girl's shoulder.

Johanna's breath caught in her chest. Her eyes shot to her father, his shirt bunched in her hands as she clutched his sleeves. "J-J-Judge?"

"Oh, for Christ's sake! Did yeh 'ave to go and mention what's- his-name?" The baker fussed with prying Johanna from her father and easing her frozen body. "Yeh look at me, now," she said as she clasped the girl's hand to her chest, "ain't nobody gonna harm yeh. Not with your father 'ere, yeh got it?"

Anthony hurried to the girl's side as well, completely blocking Sweeney away from his daughter. "And the last I heard, Johanna, both the Judge and that horrible Beadle are away from London. They're going to stay away, too, Johanna. They've got to."

Sweeney shoved his hands in his pockets, glared at nothing but air as he was cut off from _his _daughter.

Johanna had difficulty meeting their eyes, she continued to flick them towards the window of passing people as if she were searching for a man with a head of thin, graying hair, grease-slicked trousers, and a scuttling rat of a man by his side - The two of them an indestructible duo.

It was not the Judge that stole her breath, it was not the Beadle that tripped her heart as it skipped to a cadenced beat. It was a red, wool tunic amongst the grey pulse of the strollers. It was a feathered hat, a silver rapier wound with a brown, leather strap; a gun settled in a side-holster; a set of eyes that bore into her own, that widened as if in recognition, and then sank back into a sea of faces. It was a phantom of the past. It was someone she had known and prayed to forget.

But who?

"I don't want to go to the market anymore." Johanna 's eyes were locked onto the streets in a sort of daze.

Todd's tone softened as did his face. "Alright, love," he shrugged his way to her, gripped her chin, directing her eyes back onto him, "then you don't have to."

"I want to get away from this window."

His brow crumpled like folded parchment, his frown was bewildered.

"I'll take her upstairs, Mr. Todd," Anthony said, gripping her hand after shouldering over to her again. He sent the window a glance, fear alive in his eyes. His stares only provoked everyone else to stare outside, to search the storm of hands and faces for something that protruded as unordinary. Even little Toby looked outside, but his search ended with a guffaw and a wave towards one of his street-racing mates. Johanna jumped after the boy's abrupt laugh, let in a sharp gasp.

Anthony fell into action, leading her to the staircase without a word. The girl copied his actions; simply followed him, ever silent, eyes sealed shut to darken the image looping over in her mind. Red, she had seen red. The true color of Death.

It was not long after their departure that Toby - after a few beguiled glances between the two remaining adults - bounded up the stairs in pursuit of Johanna and Anthony. "Yeh know I get lonely with yeh two runnin' off!" He shouted after them when he was long out of sight. There was the jingle of an opened door, Anthony's distant laughter, and then the slam of wood against panel. A still.

Mrs. Lovett shifted towards her business partner, sent the window a scowl. "What was she lookin' at?'

"Hmm."

She sighed. "Well, whatever it was, I'm perfectly content with bashing its head in." The woman skirted her way over to the counter and began piling pots in the dug-out cupboards.

The barber continued to stare outside. A muscle in his jaw throbbed, a vein in his neck twitched. He glared with the resolve to kill, as if to break the window's glass with his eyes alone.

The baker inspected a wiry whisk, flicked a piece of molded crust from its caging, and glimpsed at the barber. "Love," she said, returning to her work, "why are yeh still lookin' at that damned window?"

He did not respond.

Lovett's head snapped up, her hands flat on the counter, immobile. She leaned forward. "Mr. Todd, what are yeh lookin' at?"

In one moment the man was lost in his stares, his eyebrows knitting together, the next, he was whirled around to face the baker, his voice a sharp whisper. "Lead him into the parlor."

Before she could respond, before she could bat an eyelash or huff a curse, the barber had disappeared into the parlor and slammed himself against the back of the door, out of sight. He eased it open a crack, enough to permit a slight view of the dining area. His hand curled around his razor, heart thundering in his chest, his throat fighting to push breath into his lungs.

The woman called after him. "What the bloody fu-"

Clinking bells and moaning wood stifled her words, and prevented her from saying anything else as the shop's front door swung open. A red tailcoat floated across Todd's eye, accompanied by shiny, black boots, a pistol strapped with the nozzle down, a voice of deep authority - a British officer. "I assume you are Mrs. Lovett, ma'am," he said.

"The one and only, sir." There was hostility in her voice, as cold as winter, as sharp as an icicle.

"And the man who was here a moment ago...Where is he?"

She replied rapidly, obviously torn between lying and revealing the barber's identity. "Oh, Mr. Todd? Why, he left for groceries. No tellin' when he'll be back."

The officer, from Todd's hidden view, had removed his hat, taken a reserved step forward. "Pray tell, Madame, how can he simply vanish for groceries when I have just seen him through_ that_ window, " he extended his finger towards the bustling street, "and I have just seen him disappear down _that_ corridor." The gloved finger then indicated the direction of the parlor.

There was a pregnant pause. "He used a side-door, sir. Long gone, by now, I'm sure."

"A side-door, ma'am? Does this uniform hint that I'm some sort of fool?"

"No, but you're baby face sure does."

Todd was prepared to rip the door open and lunge towards the officer the second he saw the man take another step towards Lovett, this one more abrupt than the last.

"I don't think you know who you are addressing, Mrs. Lovett."

A bark of laughter was Lovett's response. "That I don't, sir. Your name, if yeh please."

"Taft, ma'am. Richard Taft."

Closing his eyes, Todd slipped his forehead against the cool wood of the door. One look at the bastard was all it had taken. He had _known_.

"Alright, Mr. Taft. What can I do for yeh?" The clatter of pans signified the woman had gone back to working, perhaps to flaunt herself as nonchalant.

"The man that was here, standing right where I stand, is a convict, ma'am. And the girl that scurried upstairs before his departure is his daughter, I'm fairly certain. They share the name Barker."

The previous pause had been filled with unspoken words, but the sequel to that silence was of frozen fear, fear to speak, fear to move. Lovett's voice shook, rattled; the effort to talk was well noted in the stress of her tone. "A convict, yeh say? They don't come off as convicts. Why, that girl is a sweet li'l peach, and her father, a committed, working man. I'd see myself in the gutter, blue in the face, before believin' those two were cons."

The man browsed her counter with tight eyes and a clenched jaw, and disappeared from sight as he took a step closer to the baker. His voice was clear."The man is a con, but he girl has been relieved. I had been the one to return her to the honorable Judge-" he cut himself off. "Anyway, I had returned her to her home after an appeal in her case, but her father, that man in this kitchen, remained in captivity with a life sentence." His words were curt with fury. "_He_ must have escaped."

"_Convicts?" _It was the woman's shout that opened Todd's eyes, the shrieking echo that wound in his ears forcing him several steps backward. He panted, he perspired.

"Yes, ma'am," the officer's tone was baffled, "you mean to say that you knew nothing of this?"

"I've been housing a bunch of convicts and you presume that I've had prior knowledge? Be kind, sir, I'm an _old_ woman!"

"If you would tell me where that _Mr. Todd_ went, then this burden shall be lifted off your shoulders. I'm sure the grand court will see to that cutthroat's hanging."

"And the girl, sir?" Lovett ventured, sustaining the pretence.

"I'm fairly certain that bloody girl will be _disciplined_ into staying put for some time."

Todd's palms tingled, he sucked on his lower lip and bit into it.

"Follow me then and I'll show yeh the side-door that convict bastard took! I'm only grateful he didn't kill me in my sleep!"

There was a second long silence. "Perhaps I should retrieve the girl first..."

"No, no!" Lovett cleared her throat. "I mean, if yeh hurry, yeh might get to Todd before he is too far off. I'll see to it that the girl stays here. She won't go anywhere without her father."

Taft's voice was soft, almost forlorn. He was remembering something. "Yes, I know that all too well."

Footsteps reverberated towards the door, the click of a woman's heels followed by the thud of boots. Todd shot against the wall beside the door, razor clutched against his chest. He glared at the crack, awaiting for it to expand, for the glint of red to commence his attack.

"Ma'am, I am truly sorry to inconvenience you. I never would have interrogated you in such a manner."

The voices drew closer, the sounds, louder. Solid adrenaline thickened the barber's blood, making his heart pant and his pulse shoot like the rounds of a gun.

He had seconds left.

"Just through here, sir," the woman's fingers curled around the door handle, easing it to a wider opening. As she did so, she arranged herself beside the advancing officer, so that the barber pressed against the wall remained in Taft's blind-spot. The man's head of hair faced Todd as he strode deeper into the parlor, Lovett close to his side. Behind her back, she gripped a wooden rolling pin, her fingers bone-white with pressure.

Sweeney Todd's brow twitched, his eyes widened. _Surely, she wouldn't..._

"Hold on a moment!" Officer Taft cried as he pivoted towards the woman, his fingers stretching towards his gun. "There's no side-door in here-!"

With a close-mouthed shriek, the baker swung her arm back and slammed the side of her rolling pin upside the officer's head. He staggered to the side, eyes glinting with accusation, and lodged the pin-sharp handle into his temple. His scream was wild, a donkey bray, which Lovett silenced with a third blow, this one across his nose. The officer backed into the piano, the keys thundering a discordant sound, then stumbled forward, doubled-over an oak nightstand. He gasped as blood trickled down his chin.

Breaking free of his trance - _The woman had one hell of an arm_! - Sweeney stormed forward, looked Officer Taft in the eye. "Miss me?" he mouthed before driving his elbow hard into the back of his neck, like his arm was the blade of a medieval Guillotine. The bone of Taft's vertebrae crunched against the force, his jaw slammed onto the table as his teeth jarred together. Both his arms slumped forward, his fingers loosely skimming the carpet after falling from the hilt of his gun. His hat had glided to the floor by his side, the feathers coated with droplets of blood as it dripped from its owners flesh.

Lovett and Todd stood back, breathing hard, waiting for the officer to stand straight, to stir. There was nothing, nothing but the raspy air filtering out of his bloody nose. It was a sight difficult for the two of them to fully comprehend; a body slapped against a night table, knees bent crookedly, arms dangling like clock pendulums.

The baker stuck her chin towards his razor, pressed tight against his chest in one hand. "Why didn't yeh use it?"

Todd gave the tool a quick glance, and buried it in its holster. He said nothing.

"And who the bloody hell _was_ that sorry bloke?" She poked the officer's head with the toe of her shoe.

"The officer was assigned to take Johanna from me in Botany Bay."

"Oh," the woman sucked in a breath through her teeth, "wouldn't want to be in his boots...Come on," she said in a breathy, high-pitched way, "we 'ave to finish this."

"You realize you just attacked an officer?" Todd asked before moving. He thought it would be better to clarify the truth his eyes had shown, but his mind had rejected with a jeer - _Mrs. Lovett, hitting an officer over the head with a rolling pin? Check yourself into Fogg's asylum, son, you're off your rocker._

"I think I'm still trying to digest that, Todd." She coiled both arms around Taft's midsection and hoisted him off of her night table, flat onto the floor. Her hands were small, which made Taft's hands look like giant hams when she gripped the two of them and began hauling the body to the direction of the bake-house.

"And now you plan on burning him." Todd thought out loud, convinced that this was the most he had ever spoken to the woman.

"_I'm_," she huffed, "_trying to_," the body barely budged, "_digest that_," her face flushed to a strawberry pink, "_too_!" The woman bent forward and pressed both palms on her knees, then snapped, "Think I could 'ave some help with this?"

Shrugging his shoulders, the barber advanced towards the body and gripped two booted feet. He dragged the officer to the door, the man's head trailing the carpet, and kicked the parlor door away from him with the heel of his shoe.

Lovett watched him at his work, silent like a grave mourner. She brushed her speck-free dress for the thousandth time, staring hard at the rolling pin still gripped in her hand. Her fingers twitched to wipe the blood off of the wood, and when she did, it smeared, staining it to a dark cherry color. She sighed, muttered something about the pin being her favorite, and advanced to the bake-house doors. Her anger was unleashed as she clattered the doors open, and Todd paused in his movements to glare at Lovett and flick his eyes at the ceiling.

Just as indicated, the footsteps above head began to move away from them - to the exit of the upstairs barbershop.

Lovett swore, Todd cursed, and the two of them began kicking the body down the bake house steps, bouncing off of each other as they scrambled to the exit. The woman left a whirlwind in her wake after rushing to the parlor, seizing the officer's bloody hat, and flinging it down the dark stairway. It landed atop its owner's chest. After the woman slammed the doors shut, the two stumbled into the bakery, Mrs. Lovett smoothing out her dress, Todd straightening his black, strip-thin tie.

Anthony guided Johanna into the shop, swirling Johanna around in spirals like a ballet dancer as Toby skipped past them. The orphan stumbled, tripped into a booth and shot back up, his hair slicked up in comic spikes, his mouth ajar. He was looking at Mr. Todd and Mrs. Lovett, still fussing over their clothes, the woman plastering on a cheap grin. Todd did not even try to copy her facial expression.

"What," Toby slurred, "was you two doing in the parlor?" He hiccupped and wiped at his lips with the back of his sleeve as Johanna staggered over to a seat, clinging to Anthony, submerged in a fit of giggles.

"Toby, you've been drinking, ain't yeh?" Lovett said, her arms crossed into a firm_ X_ across her chest.

The boy produced a brown bottle, the word _Gin _plastered onto the yellow, slab of parchment wound around its belly. He sluiced it around and the hollow trickle of water indicated the bottle was near empty. "Yeppum." He hiccupped again. "But you're avoidin' the question! What were yeh two doin'?"

"I 'ave the right to avoid the question, I'm your mum!" Lovett breezed forward and snatched the bottle from him. "Yeh gave it to those two, didn't yeh, Toby?" She jutted her thumb towards the teen couple.

Toby gave a wide, bear-grin, his eyes closing slowly. "Sharing is caring, mum."

"And he's a sharer!" Johanna piped up.

"Silence, missy, you're dad's been snogging my mum and I'm making a public complaint...or whatever those sons-o'-bitches are called..." He gurgled like an infant, plopping his drowsy head onto the table.

Johanna glanced at her father, some sort of sober understanding draining her pale face.

Todd slammed his feet onto the floor, strutting forward to jostle Anthony aside and grasp Johanna. "You need to go upstairs-"

"You left me, papa, you left and all I had was the gin to remind me of you." She went from tears at the beginning of her statement, to laughter. "Remember the first day in the barracks, and you gave me a sip of gin for sleep? I do."

Todd scowled at his own stupidity. He should not have left her alone longer than he had, it was not healthy for her. Hell, she would end up killing herself without him by her side.

A wave of guilt drowned out his agitation, but then set him right back on track. He was just planning the murder of a British officer; he didn't have _time_ for this!

"I want you to go back to the shop."

"It's alright, papa, you can kiss mummy in front of me," Johanna said with a bird-chirp of a giggle.

Todd wished to retaliate, but his daughter's statement silenced him. He suffered a moment of weakness, a glance at the empty air.

"I heard a bang and I got scared, papa." Johanna attempted to smooth out her father's collar, to reel him out of his stupor. "So scared...Like when _they_ did those terrible things to me."

Todd snatched her fingers and glared into his daughter's red eyes. She had been crying before, he was sure of it. "What did you say?"

"Aw, lookit! There's a storm cloud overhead!" Toby shouted as he pawed the window, his hair sticking out like dog ears.

Anthony lingered next to the boy. "Yes, that's a storm cloud. Usually we call them bumpy-devils because of their appearance, but this one will more likely be a snow storm-"

"Anthony, you didn't drink?"

The sailor turned to Todd, smiled, and shook his head. "No, sir, I did not. I'd only realized Toby had swiped the gin once it was half-empty, and Johanna went mad when I told her she couldn't have anymore. She said it reminded her of you."

Anthony's voice was sliced by Toby's howl, "_Oh, sail on, sweet sailor! We sail through the stormy seas_!"

Johanna leaned into her father, beside herself as Toby spread his arms like an opera performer.

Lovett collapsed into a corner booth and buried her hands in her palms, groaning, "Just get 'em OUT!"

"Boy, take 'em upstairs," Todd hissed as he yanked Anthony up by his collar.

Anthony shot his arms out in self-defense, voice nervous and shaky. "Not a problem, sir." He shrugged away from the demon barber, and gathered Toby and Johanna, claiming they had a better view of the approaching storm from the barbershop.

But Johanna whispered something in her father's ear before she left. Her eyes were serious, her face drawn in a set of anxious creases. "Don't let them hurt me, papa." His heart had paused, his stomach had lurched as if he was going to be sick. He envisioned the Judge and Beadle and his mind was flooded with crazed, panicked thoughts. He had wanted to question her, to shake some sort of response out of her, to convince himself she had sipped alcohol and was spewing nonsense.

These were things Johanna would _never _say while in a conscious state of mind.

The fear remained after the trio had thundered up the stairs. It was a thick fear, suffocating.

Sweeney rubbed his head-it was beginning to burn-and approached Mrs. Lovett. She was still situated in her seat, head buried in the folds of her arms, bottle of gin clutched between her thumb and forefinger. At the sound of his silence, she spoke, tired. "I have two drunk children upstairs, a blistering headache, and a body shoved halfway down my bake-house staircase." She glanced at Todd, curls slicked to her face with sweat. "I'm a half-step away from death."

And then came the silence. Todd was strangely familiar with the awkward quiet, with a female of demanding eyes and an eager grimace awaiting his words of wisdom.

No such luck.

"Yeh wanna kill off that gin?" he suggested.

"For fuck's sake," Lovett muttered, and she attacked the bottle without retrieving a glass. After a few healthy swigs, she offered it to Todd, who shook his head and gestured towards her - She should finish it.

And she did. And when she was done, the pair attended to the body by dragging it onto the bake-house floor, across the room - It protruded seeing that there was an absence of human kill in that area - and shoving it into the fiery furnace.

Orange flames licked at Taft's body, heat emitted from the red-hot walls, and that must have been what woke the officer from unconsciousness. The man thrashed to life, his mouth parted in a set of silent screams, his fingers clawing the air as barber and baker spectated his death. The fetid smell of burning flesh seeped from the area as the officer's skin blackened to coal, his red-tail coat melding into the redness of flame and then the grey of his ashes. All that was left was a block of a body, and even that soon disintegrated into a fine powder as the fire danced over it.

Todd turned towards the woman, gripped her arm, and directed her from the sight. "Don't look," he whispered, well aware that it was paternal instinct kicking in.

Paternal instinct or affectionate concern, Mrs. Lovett did not seem to know the difference between night and day. She nodded her head, let him lead her to the door and heave it shut.

Before she could clamber up the stairs, Sweeney placed a second hand on her free arm and turned her to him. The darkness of the stairwell blocked out the light of her eyes, but her face seemed to exude a glow as she stared at him, questioning.

Their breaths were like the whispers of restless ghosts. Her lips pursed, her eyes twitched to drink in his whole body, the pale shade of his lips, the darkness that encircled his eyes like shadowed rings. He was perfect, and every nerve, every raw impulse in her body, knew that. She had never touched his face, never kissed him, yet she felt like she knew what his lips tasted like-briny, but his mouth would taste like sugar. The skin of his cheeks would feel like velvet, but his hands would have thick patches of calluses cutting across his palm. She would feel her own hand lost in his, and surrender her soul to his.

Surely he knew how much she cared now. She had waited so long for this, she had _burned _for this. Burned for him.

Her spine arched in towards his sculpted form. Her head tilted to the side, slightly askew. Her nose burned with the scent of him -a foreign cologne, the crisp linen of the shirt. Their lips were inches apart, and she could almost taste the sweetness of his breath, the salt on his lips.

He spoke. "I read Lucy's letter."

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	45. Chapter 45

**Chapter 45**

"I read Lucy's letter."

It was then. It was there. Like a golden opportunity placed in plain sight and then ripped away; a promise thrown to the floor and spat upon. It was pain. It was disappointment.

But it was almost expected.

"Oh, did yeh?" Nellie replied, constructing her words so they were sturdy, hiding the cracks in her tone - the cracks in her heart.

"You knew about it," the barber began, sliding his palm on the wall next to her head and leaning in closer, so that the trickle of his breath fanned her cheeks. The ends of their hair brushed against each other. Their skin was icy, barely touching, glowing like moon-white marble.

"Course I did," she whispered. "It was where I hid your razors."

"But you didn't say anything 'bout it," he said. Fire glinted in his eyes, but it was not an angry fire. It was hunger, a thirst for truth. He continued to glare at her, without the intention of being intimidating - just persuasive.

Mumbling, she replied, "There wasn't anythin' to say. I thought you'd notice it sooner or later."

"You read it?"

"Yes. " Lovett slid against the wall, away from him. "I didn't know what the bloody hell it was!" she snapped, a glare at the stairwell hardening her face.

This time his touch was brute, and with the exact intention of sparking intimidation. "My-" he swallowed. "-My wife...she thought you were her friend."

Lovett's head whipped towards him. Her hair sliced the air and then swooshed down to her shoulders. Her voice was softer than her face, like a pillow compared to a slab of ice. "I thought I was, too."

Todd's voice also softened, and like her, his face was stone-hard. "What changed?"

The woman spat out a harsh bark. "You."

A brow pushed upward on the barber's brow. The expression itself was a question, a question that Lovett simply was not ready to answer. He did not wrench her back when the baker clutched two fistfuls of her skirt and hauled herself up the stairs; he rocked on his heels as he watched her shrug through the doorway, light spilling around her and outlining the silhouette of her body.

After a considerable pause in his thoughts, the barber pushed himself forward and followed her up the stairway, into the bakery. He had not left her alone for more than a minute, and by the time he had arrived in the woman's shop, she was already behind her counter - her battle fort, he believed - throwing together a pork pie.

"I changed," Todd repeated, breezing his way to the front of her fortress. He swiped a cleaver and fingered the keen edge, toying with his skin until it broke, and the tiniest slice of blood stood on his skin like an exclamation point.

"Yes, yeh did." Lovett did no look at him, instead pounding dough onto her cutting board and rounding it into shape.

"Explain?"

"That ain't necessary, Mr. T, and yeh know it."

"Explain."

Her fingers bent like talons and tucked into fists. "I _was_ friends with Lucy, I s'pose...and then I felt more for someone else." The clatter of the cleaver dropping to the counter caused the woman to glance up, and the nonchalant stare the barber gave her fueled her to continue. "Someone who's dead."

For the first time, Todd's uncaring glance broke and became something inquisitive - a frown, a pointed gaze, brows embracing his hairline. "Your husband?"

She laughed, but she had not meant to. "No, dear, Albert was my friend before he was my love."

Todd forced himself to wear a blank, empty grimace. "Barker?"

"Never mind, Mr. T, " she said as she pounded at the dough, digging into its surface with her coin-sized knuckles. After flattening it to a paper-thin slab, she finally glanced at him, then continued to work. "Love, could yeh pop in on the children for a tick?"

"Barker's dead, you know."

The woman wore an angry grimace; behind it was a set of fallen eyes. "You're right. 'e _is_ dead."

Todd glanced at the dirt-scattered counter, wearing a tightrope-straight grimace. The woman admitting to Barker's death...no, that did not sound right at all. Hell, he could shut himself in a room all day, chanting, "Barker's dead, Barker's dead," until he collapsed, but the baker saying it only once stirred a rampage of unease. It was like he had been lying to himself, like Benjamin was just as much a part of him as Todd was, yet Lovett muttering that Benjamin was dead suddenly confirmed it to be true, and Barker might as well have crumpled in the corner of the bakery and died then and there.

Sweeney did not enjoy this bit of knowledge at all. In fact, his mind had labeled it as bullshit.

"What do yeh mean he's dead?" Todd's head snapped into a straight position, eyes screwed up with determination.

The woman, puzzled by her partner's abrupt change in attitude, puckered her lips into a wrinkled ball, as if he forced a sour taste into her mouth. "Yeh just said that you weren't Benjamin anymore-"

"I know what I said." He severed her sentence. "I want to know what _you_ said."

"I was repeatin'-"

He curled his fist into a ball and hauled in onto the countertop. "No, you said you loved Barker! The bloody idiot he is, how could you ever love a boy that's so thick, so goddamned naive? You're no better than him if you do!"

Mixing wheat and water into a bowl, the woman threw herself into her work rather than the conversation. She spoke softly, like easing a child out of a temper tantrum. "I never said I loved Benjamin." She offered a casual glance; the glance of a bored converser, a dinner guest mulling over the Queen. "But you're right. I did love him." Her eyes rested on her mixing bowl, her movements slowed to a thoughtful pace.

"Loved?"

"Well, 'ow can I go on lovin' a dead man, Mr. T? After all," she stopped moving all together, gaping at the edge of her counter, "life's for the alive."

Staring silently, Todd's eyes tamed down, and in the sunlight they almost looked like a warm brown. He stepped behind the counter, his hands marking patterns as he trailed the counter surface, to the woman's side.

Her gaze, trained on the floor in front of her fortress, began to break. She stole a peek at him through the corner of her eyes, and her head tilted in towards him. Both hands were positioned at her sides, yet her fingers shook with a slight tremor, as did her breath.

All motivations in the barber's mind cleared away, giving him space to think. It was his revenge that had blinded him, had nearly taken his daughter from him after all he had done. It was love that had brought him to vengeance to begin with, and his life's love was upstairs in the shop, clean and healthy. Every thought seemed filtered, every ambition stowed into proper place. His mind centered on the woman before him, bound by a facade of apathy, acting like his words did not hurt her. Mrs. Lovett had always been there for him, never shook her head to his wishes, risked her own life to carry out his every whim. _When had Benjamin Barker become a _selfish_ animal?_ Todd thought as he turned her to face him, his hands on her shoulders.

"I've caused you pain."

She did not bother to smile, or bat away his self-accusation, or even turn away from him. The woman stared forward, condemning him with every part of her body - her dull eyes, her frowning lips, rigid body, broken stare - set aside her voice.

Todd cupped her chin between his thumb and forefinger, stared at her. That was the only contact they held; her jaw in his hand, their bodies miles apart, separated by desire, strained by desire.

Lovett rolled her tongue around in her mouth as if to taste the words she would never dare say, the emotion that ate at her every second. Her hands fought to touch him, to feel his heated body run beneath her cool skin. She wanted to feel his warmth, to feel no shame when her blood boiled and her heart pounded out of her chest, when he was no doubt thinking of his wife as he held her.

But the thought of his wife did not provoke any shame as he leaned down to the baker and pressed his lips against her forehead - like he had done many times with his daughter. He did not kiss the woman, though. He rested there.

"Maybe he isn't as dead as we would like to believe," the man whispered against her, his breath crawling on her skin, raising goose-bumps on her arms.

And before the moment - the all too surreal moment - could register as reality in the baker, it had ended. Sweeney Todd left her there to ghost up the staircase, as she stood with an expressionless gape, facing the space where he once stood. She did not feel anything; not a smidge of rejection or the pang of a lost opportunity until she gripped the bowl of wheat - she just realized she had made the dish for no reason - opened her bakery door, and hurled it into the blur of London's street.

Footsteps sounded behind her, down the stairs. _Most likely the children_, Nellie assumed as she slipped the door shut and fixed a wide, happy grin on her lips. _Get ready because the cavalry's here_.

Anthony was beside Toby, for Johanna had been stolen by her father again, her hand locked in his. The sailor had to have patience, Lovett credited him with that. It must have taken hours of hell to finally come to terms with the fact that his mate was his beloved's father.

"Mum," Toby groaned as he stumbled to her, one hand massaging his temple. "I think I might 'ave drank too much this time."

The woman clucked her tongue and led him into the parlor, the sailor trailing behind after a glance at Johanna. She was being led to a table by her father, but a peek at the sailor's crestfallen frown stirred Todd's conscience. The barber offered her hand to Anthony. "Why don't you take her?"

Anthony jumped to the task as eager as a wide-eyed puppy. "Thank you, sir!" he cried, grabbing her hand.

The girl moaned a bit, the alcohol's effects slowly wearing her down as the room spiraled around her. "I'm goin' to die," she murmured into the sailor's shoulder while he directed her to the parlor, to which he responded in a chuckle.

"Now_ that_ would be a calamity."

Todd lingered behind the two, watched them disappear into the parlor - he felt like he had just given his daughter away at her wedding - until Lovett returned into the shop.

"Is she hungry?" the baker asked, gesturing towards the same room.

"Probably."

"Alright, I made a loaf this mornin'." She turned to retrieve the food, adding over her shoulder, "and if they sip anymore of that gin-!" She let her words dangle in the air, too comical to be considered a threat.

Sweeney felt his lips rise in a grin, and frowned to rid himself of it. What he received was a crinkled half-grin, a complete failure, and he sulked into the parlor to check on the children only after he got over his own stupidity.

The three teens were packed close together, Anthony next to Johanna on a plush loveseat, Toby seated at their feet, his legs spiraling out from beneath him. In his hands, the sailor toyed with a brown top-hat. "Whose is this, Mr. Todd?" he asked, looked up at the barber, and held out the accessory.

The man shrugged his shoulders then switched his gaze to Johanna's curious smile. "A customer's maybe."

"It was on the coat rack in the hall. Someone must've left it behind," said Anthony as he inspected its sturdy rim and soot-sprinkled top. His eyes averted to Johanna, returned to the hat - Johanna, hat, Johanna, hat. After a wide grin betrayed his intentions, Anthony plopped the top-hat on Johanna's head. She giggled and gripped the brim, but then forced it off of her head.

Todd stifled a chuckle. His eyes seemed to do all the laughing.

Toby was the next victim. The top-hat barely fit on his head, sinking low to conceal his eyes. The rim encircled his head and severed his nose at the bridge. He looked around blindly, convinced he was suffering some sort of drunken repercussion. "What the bloody hell?" His young hands groped the air, Anthony's ankle, and when he brushed Johanna's skirt, he squealed an apology.

Anthony stole the hat back and laughed off Toby's array of angry huffs. When the boy had quieted, and Anthony had stared at the hat long enough, he placed it atop his own head. It was a perfect fit.

The three young faces lost their smiles, their laughter, and gawked at each other. Anthony instinctively pulled Johanna closer to him, Toby nestled closer to the loveseat's skirt. They stared hard at the ever-lit fire, their eyes lost to the ashen hearth, and kept the silence chaste. It was an image of life; of the roles they played, the people they aspired to be, the roles they could not play, and the people they would later become. A glimpse into the future, and a shedding of the past; an understanding of the present, and a comprehension of their character. It was a revelation.

Mrs. Lovett's voice popped up from behind his back. He jumped slightly. "Food's on the table, Mr. T," she whispered, mainly because she, too, had caught glimpse of the three. "Ain't that a sight?"

Todd offered an uncomfortable grunt.

"Aw, come now," she said, her cheer a bit forced, "she'll always be your li'l lady."

Before he could look at the woman, she had strutted down the hall to the kitchen. _No doubt the woman fucking hates me_, he thought as he approached Johanna. _She has the right to, anyway_.

"Lunch, love," he said.

Johanna broke out of her trance, gave an awed smile, and stood to clasp her father's hand. Once they had left, Anthony and Toby's voices were a low buzz in the parlor behind them.

"Ah, I see you're not half as drunk as yeh were before," the baker commented, hands on her hips as Johanna sat in a booth.

The girl did not smile; she blushed and bowed her head.

"Now, now, I'm only pullin' your leg." The woman approached the counter, swiped a plate, and brought it over to the table. "God help us if yeh can't hold your gin as good as your father does."

Todd placed himself across from her, and again, his eyes were tangled in the mess of London city outside the window. When he glanced at Johanna, his jaw eased and his eyes dimmed. The world was not nearly as gray, not half as horrendous as he had perceived it to be.

God, she did wonders for him.

"I'm tired of this," Johanna finally muttered, staring daggers at her severed loaf of bread.

Todd's head fell to the side in amusement. Was his daughter _complaining_? "What d'ya mean?"

Lovett hovered to the side, appalled that her food was suffering the same rejection it had received before her Grand Reopening. "Something's wrong with it?" She wiped her brow with a lacy, gloved palm.

"No, ma'am," Johanna explained, "nothing is wrong with the food. But..." her glance bore into her father, "I'm tired of eating while you sit back and watch. It's not fair because-" Her articulations caved in and fell apart. She stuttered. "-because you need to eat...and it's not nearly fair enough-"

"Alright, alright," Todd raised his hands, "what do you want me to do, honey?"

Johanna leaned back, satisfied with her sloppy victory. "I want you to eat a piece before I do."

"A whole piece?" Sweeney began, building a facade of fear. "I don't think I can handle a _whole piece_."

Johanna smiled and squashed an approaching fit of laughter. "Well, you have to," she crossed her arms, "or no food for me either."

"You drive a hard deal, little lawyer." He handled the bread and ripped off a handful, holding it before his lips. The joke seemed to falter. Sweeney glanced at his girl as if to search for leniency.

Eyes fixed on the bread, the girl shifted forward and licked her lips.

That had done him in. He popped the piece into his mouth and chewed. It had been some time, he admitted, since he had tasted freshly baked bread. Its fluffy insides melted on his tongue, the crust scraped against his throat.

"You next," he pushed the platter towards her, and before she could lunge at it and stuff the entire meal into her mouth, Todd added, "small bites."

She did as he said and ate with small bites. The plate was cleared within a minute, give or take a second.

"You're funny, papa," the girl said afterward, clearing crumbs off of her dress. She sent the window a wary glance, then turned to her father with a list of inquiries sprawled on her face. "Did anyone come into the shop? I thought I saw a red tunic outside this window..."

Lovett cleared her throat and glared at Sweeney before scurrying off to the parlor. "Goin' to check on the lads."

Todd's head steamed like an angry teapot. "Don't you worry about anything, my love," he said as he slid a hand on top off hers, stroking her knuckles with his thumb.

Johanna nodded, but she still held a troubled aura to her. Her eyes turned to the window, and drooped closed. She propped her chin in her palm.

"You're tired," Todd noted despite the fact that it was mid-afternoon.

"That's silly," Johanna mumbled.

"Is it the gin?"

She may have been exhausted, but her smile was perfect. "Like the night in the barracks..."

Sweeney sighed and moved to stand, then slipped next to her in the seat. Her head rested in the crook of his neck, both arms looping around his waist.

"You know you can't drown your sorrows in Gin, right?"

She pressed her nose into his shirt collar, and his scent seemed to glue her flying thoughts into place, and further her fatigue. "Stay with me forever and I won't have to," she mumbled.

"No," he said, pulling her away. Her head dropped, so he had to lift her head up by her chin until their eyes met. "While you're in this house, you won't down a drop without my permission."

And, like always, she gave in to his command without question. "Yes, sir."

Both stared into the other's eyes for a minute longer, and the trance was broken by the barber. "Wanna go upstairs?"

Her head plopped down and her eyes rose up to his - a sloppy nod.

Without a word, he slipped an arm around her, hoisted her to her feet, and towed her to the indoor staircase. Each step proved a challenge for the girl, she started out walking and ended up leaning into her father, feet frozen on the middle step. He gave her a slight push to jostle her out of her sleep, but nearly carried her the rest of the way.

When he reached the shop, he plopped her into the corner cot, slipped the sheets up to her chin, and sat himself at the end of the mattress, regarding the flat with dark, dead eyes. It was foreign and completely out of place when he switched his thoughts to fifteen years past, and considered the light it had once shined with. Every so often, he would glance at Johanna, and a fragment of light would brighten the room. Or as he had said before, she would 'cheer the air'. Only now did the truth of his words weigh more than a statement - Truth was always in large proportions. Sometimes too large to carry or cart around.

So the barber sat, and the barber thought, chained to the spot, watching his daughter sleep as the world outside their home burned. It was different in the shop now; fire could not brush its walls. Not with an angel tucked away inside.

Mrs. Lovett eventually clambered up to the barbershop, long after the sun had hidden behind the London roofs and chimneys.

"No dinner tonight, Mr. T?" she asked, hands popped onto her hips, brown eyes like black pits in the shadows.

Todd shook his head without looking away from Johanna. "She's tired."

"Well, she's your responsibility when she comes stumblin' down to me shop with a blistering headache."

He ignored the comment, and traced the girl's jaw line with his finger. His spine tingled as he stretched his back, rolled the cricks out of his neck.

Lovett cocked her head to the side, her whole body sagging as she did so. "Yeh can stand if yeh want to, love. Your girl won't mind."

Todd shook his head, bent forward, and cupped his knees. "No, she'll panic if I stir an inch."

"You're in pain, Mr. T!"

He scowled at her, an expression which read _'I'll kill you if you wake my little daughter'_.

Her sigh was louder than her voice. With a stride in her step, the baker approached the cot and ran her fingers through a lock of Johanna's dull hair. After pinching the blanket between her fingers, she lifted it up a slight bit to inspect the girl's apparel. "Yeh let 'er sleep in 'er day clothes?"

"She blacked out on me." He muttered, rubbing his bunched up muscles.

Mrs. Lovett noticed this and sighed, pulling away from the child. "Just stand up, love. Stretch your legs a bit."

His jaw bulged with muscle as he clenched his teeth. The baker gripped his arm, her strained huffs grew into pants, and he breezed to her side before she could wake the immobile Johanna.

"There we are. No harm done, see?"

The barber grunted as shards of spasms crawled up his legs. He rubbed the tender muscle and tiptoed to his chair, leaning heavily on the edge. The woman scuffled over to him, her hand as white as a dead man's when she placed it on his shoulder, massaging it.

"Yeh work yourself into a tizzy, and one day, yeh ain't goin' to recover. Take each day slowly, love."

"I haven't worked for a whole goddamn week, woman."

"And with good reason. We don't want anyone walkin' in and noticin' your girl until we're prepared."

Another grunt. He palmed the armrests as the tingles in his lower half eased to a steady throb. This discomfort he could handle.

There was a soft tap, like someone was rapping their knuckles on wood. Sweeney cast the floor a glance, and noticed Mrs. Lovett had kicked the bottom of his barbering chair. His eyes poked questions at her as he looked up, to which she answered in a whisper. Her cockney accent increased her volume to an extent.

"Looks like yeh won't 'ave to use that chair for anythin' other than shaves and haircuts." She smiled, as if her realization made her happy.

No, there would be no happiness for Mrs. Lovett in _his _domain. "Two more still have to die," he hissed, "and you know it."

The smile scampered away. In its place, a deep frown stood. "Yeh mean that rotten Judge and rat-faced fellow?"

His chin sliced the air in a nod. "Course."

"But I thought yeh were through with all that revenge nonsense!" She crossed her arms over her chest, which elevated her cleavage. She tried to pout, to look adorable, but the barber's resolve pushed away her flirtatious attempts and stirred her mothering spirit.

"Before lunch, when Johanna had been drinkin' -"

"This topic offends, love."

"I know, " he snapped, and spoke in the pitch of a mouse-squeak when Johanna rustled to her side on the cot, "just hear me out. When Johanna drank the Gin, she said somethin' 'bout protecting her...from _them_."

"The Judge and Bamford?" Mrs. Lovett said, her brow crumpling.

"Who else?"

"Well, she's been locked in an insane asylum, for Christ's sake. She could be scared of that Fogg man, or the cons she'd been housed with when she was with yeh, or a buggin' inmate on the ship back-"

"No. I _saw_ the fear in her eyes when I mentioned the Judge." He cast a glare at London, burned a hole into its city streets and nighttime amblers. "It's him."

Lovett's mouth snapped shut, a grinding noise emitting as she clenched her teeth. "What d'ya think 'appened to 'er?"

He stared at the floor, and in the moonlight, it looked as if he longed to cry, to release every tension out of him in one racking sob. He had his suspicions - he would have been an idiot had he not - but surely Johanna would have said something, dropped him a hint, a message, anything that indicated her past with Turpin. It could have been in her smile, the way it withered so quickly, or how she eyed his arms when they were alone, or always kept her stares hovered on the nearest exits. He had to have seen it, had to have known what horrors his daughter had been through. He opened his mind, tore through his memory, closed his eyes as fire clogged his thoughts.

He failed. With a sigh, he admitted to the worst fear he could imagine: ignorance. "I don't know."

Lovett rubbed his back. "I don't think either of us wants to know. And I'm sure your girl ain't about to tell."

"That's the problem. I've asked her loads of times, and she becomes so_ emotional, " _he shuddered, "and I have to leave it alone..."

"If that's the problem, 'ow yeh gonna fix it?"

He growled his response, almost pouncing into a rhythmic pace. "By slicing a Beadle and pulverizing a Judge." All unshed tears had been blinked away, his broken eyes pieced back together with steel.

"What if we're makin' a big deal out of nothing?" She ventured. "What if Johanna is just scared of loosin' yeh?"

The man paused, glowered at her with an appalled frown. "Are you insane?"

"Mr. Todd-"

"If she's terrified to leave me for more than a minute-!" He could not bring himself to continue, and instead rested his head on a windowpane. How could the woman degrade his child's terror into nothing more than a separation anxiety?

He felt the baker approach his back, her voice purr in his ear. "When are yeh plannin' on doin' those two in?"

"When the shop is opened. I'll lure them to me." He tried to push her away with a curt reply, but she rebounded.

"And Johanna?" Another hand slipped onto his arm, held him as if to keep him harnessed.

"I'll hide her downstairs. No one's goin' to even _look_ at her oddly without bein' done in."

"And how long is this goin' to go on? Till she's a grown woman?"

"Till I'm dead."

The baker smiled. Now that her barber had stopped his pacing and subdued his temper, she had been speaking rubbish for the whole time, if only to have a partial conversation with him. "And even after death, eh?"

This time, the spirit of his smile wandered to his lips. "Yeah, even then."

"Papa?"

The smile faded, as if washed away by the shadows prowling the walls. He was gone from the window in a blink of an eye, and was then at his little lady's side, kneeling. "Sorry, love, 'ad to stretch for a moment."

Her cheek was perched on her palm, her elbow stood from the sheets and supported her arm. Johanna reached for one of his hands, her fingers lost in his closed grip as he held onto her. She wriggled them around to ensure they had not vanished altogether. "You left," she murmured, gaze cast at the sheets.

"I'll never leave," he shook his head.

She blinked a few times, until her eyelids were too heavy to lift, and sank back into the pillow. Her father encased her in the blankets once again - the snowstorm was sending a draft into the room - and approached the baker afterward.

"You should sleep, too," he said.

Lovett shook her head, yet agreed to his suggestion. "Been a hell of a day, love, I ain't gonna lie."

Their footsteps were light as he led her to the door, unspeaking.

It was the silence that heightened their hearing. It was the silence that led them to hear the clatter of the bakery door opening downstairs. It was the heavy boots below that kept the barber and baker silenced, and it was the summoning call that caused them to scamper around the room, each heart pumping fear with every move, every breath.

Had they prepared for this, the two would have hidden Johanna, greeted the intruder, and quietly killed him in the bake-house, just as they had done with the officer. They would have burned the body for the second time that day, staggered into their separate rooms, and sat in that same dreadful silence, in reflection on what they had just done.

But they did not know.

Sweeney bolted to his daughter and jostled her awake, a hand on her mouth. She snapped awake, her shriek muffled by his fingers, and clutched his wrist in a death-grip. He tapped his own lips, a sign that she should remain silent. "I need you to hide," he whispered as he pulled his hand away.

"Why?" she choked out, only relieved that her father was protecting her, not assaulting her.

Pulling on both of her wrists, he dragged her over to the shop's only broom-closet, wrenched it open, and shoved her inside. She stumbled in the sudden darkness and clawed her way to the doorway, where the light pooled in. She brushed away thick clouds of cobwebs.

"Listen to me." He set both palms on her neck, rubbing her skin with his thumb. "Someone is downstairs. You cannot be seen, you cannot be heard-"

"But, wh-who, father? Who, _who_?" She started to cry. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her once. She quieted herself.

"-and you will stay here until it's safe." His voice was a brisk demand. "_You understand me_?"

She nodded, tears flinging into the air and dripping on his hands.

Lovett popped in from behind the barber's back. "Mr. T, we gotta go now." Her voice was pinched into a mere whisper. She was afraid.

He snapped something behind him, turned back to his daughter, and roped her into his arms one last time. He quickly kissed her hair, whispered words that went unheard, then vanished. The door closed behind him.

Johanna swam in the darkness of the closet, her arms pinned to the wall. She sank to her knees as an intangible weight pounded her down, and wrapped her arms across her stomach as if she were bound in a straightjacket. When she listened to the nothingness around her, she could almost hear the gentle singing of her mother as she roamed the streets drawing closer to her. The voice - it was on Fleet Street, it was on the shop stairs, it was outside the closet door...And even when the girl pounded her fists against her ears, the sound of her mother grew louder and louder, a lullaby's crescendo. So close, and now it was beside her in the pitch-black broom-closet, crooning her name.

"Come play with the children, darling."

Johanna pressed her balled fist against her mouth and screamed.

Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney Todd forced their way into the bakery to find the intruder browsing the kitchen counter, pinching snuff into his nostrils from a tiny silver box.

"Pardon the intrusion," Beadle Bamford said between sneezes, "but the Bureau of Investigation has sent me on an inspection." He faced the two panting partners in the side doorway, faces devoid of blood. "However, it is good to see old friends." He exposed his chipped teeth in a smirk.

Mrs. Lovett glanced at Todd, silently reminding him that Anthony was still in the parlor with Toby. She silently hoped the two boys had heard the oily whine of the Beadle's voice and remained quiet.

The baker placed herself beside the Beadle, blocking his entry to the parlor, as Sweeney closed in on the opposite side, barricading the way to the barbershop.

"Of course, sir," Todd tried at a pleasant smile, "though it's a bit late..."

The Beadle's lip curled in distaste. "Ah, yes, well the call of duty can never be ignored, can it? Now, there have been a few complaints on the stench from your chimney, but they were dismissed when the odor disappeared. It returned earlier on today, and the Bureau decided a little check-up may now be necessary." He perused the counter, as if the source of the smell would suddenly jump at him and reveal itself. "And," he added, "this means a look at your bake-house."

"Not a problem, Beadle Bamford." Todd slid a hand towards the Beadle's arm, turning him towards the doors. Obviously, it had been the burning corpse of the Officer that had summoned the report. Todd cursed everyone who had anything to do with the complaint, and continued with pleasantries as he plotted the Beadle's slaughter. "We'll take you there now."His eyes flicked towards Lovett in affirmation - _There will be bloodshed._ He exposed his razor. The flaps of his coat kept it concealed. But nothing could conceal the raw fury in Todd's glare; the glint of his eyes, the thin line of his lips. _The bastard will die tonight, come hell or high water_."Just this way."

And as they began to descend down the hall, the sounds of their scuffling feet increased to a reverberation through the hall.

Sweeney glanced only once at Lovett as they approached the bake-house doors. It was her terror-stricken eyes that caused the barber to glance in the direction she was staring at: The parlor.

There stood Anthony, a once curious look on his face, now a wide-eyed gaze, mouth hanging open, and shoulders hunched up.

The Beadle stood still, staring at the teen. He flicked his head to the side to sweep back a greasy strand of hair, and bobbed his head forward like a turtle poking out of its shell. "The sailor," he said, unable to tear his eyes off of the young lad.

Anthony's eyes were no longer directed at the Beadle. Instead, they, along with the rest of his body, looped around the three adults, down the hall, past the kitchen, into the side-door of which they had just come. The boy mouthed '_Johanna'_, and he stumbled into a side wall with a swear, breathing hard.

The horrid intensity of the boy's gaze drew all eyes to the door.

With a blank mind, Sweeney turned, and could only study the floor after catching a glimpse of his daughter standing in the doorway. He was tempted, for the moment, to bellow at her and demand why she had left, but it truly would not have mattered if he impaled her with roars or spat curses as he clawed the hair out of his head. He stood there, gripping his razor, dumbstruck as Mrs. Lovett followed suit at his side.

Johanna looked at her father with almost puzzled eyes and her expression did not change as she glimpsed at the Beadle. It was like she doubted his presence, or reality had yet to settle to the bottom of her conscience. She was hollow inside for the moment, immune to emotion. Todd noticed the emptiness in his daughter's eyes was similar to what he had felt before Benjamin Barker had been butchered by his own mind. He remembered, and felt a force drag his foot toward his daughter as she stared at Bamford, dull-eyed, dead. What was wrong with her?

The Beadle stepped towards her and assessed what was once his prey, his little rag doll to toss around and torment. The way his mouth plopped opened indicated his shock - she had changed almost beyond recognition. But his eyes lit like a thousand burning candles, and his voice dripped like melted wax. "Hello there, my little birdie."

**Alright, here comes the apologies. I'm sorry I took so long to update. I'm sorry to have left you all with a maddening cliffhanger. And I'm sorry for any future delays I may have in posting again. (Though there shouldn't be too many.)**

**Now, the appreciation. Thank you all so much for reviewing. I feel like I don't credit you guys enough. You are my INSPIRATION! I wish I could list every single one of you on here, but then I run the risk of missing a name, and that's just insulting! So please do continue to leave your comments, and I promise to work my hardest on the next chapter update. **

**Thank you all so very much and please review!**


	46. Chapter 46

**Please review, and thank you ALL for your support. (Even readers like you, Nickie Colee, ha-ha.) **

**So, this chapter is...well...I don't really know how to describe it. Review and YOU can tell me! **

**Chapter 46**

"Hello there, my little birdie."

Johanna wavered a bit, from the back of her heels to her toes, like she was about to tumble like a corpse in a dead faint. She remained firm, though, and kept her frozen gaze locked on the Beadle as he inched closer and closer to her. Her breaths crawled, her heart seemed to flutter until it sparked flames. For the first time since her escape from Fogg's, she felt isolated.

"It's been a while, hasn't it, love?" Bamford chortled, eyes squinted into glassy, brown marbles. Once he was close enough, his breath wafted to her cheeks, and a fetid odor seeped into her nose.

Johanna gagged a bit, her own eyes watering either from the stench or from suffocating fear. Purple dots poked into her vision, then a sheet of black. After blinking, it cleared into a somewhat decent frame of sight, but the odor remained, and tears pricked her nose. She flicked her eyes toward Sweeney, almost as if for assistance, but his tight scowl and gleaming eyes were a greater threat than the Beadle; even as he curled his talons on her shoulder. Bamford veered her from the doorway and pulled her inside, his yellow, cracked nails disappearing into her skin.

The moment he had touched the girl, bloody crescents seeped through the shoulder of her dress. Todd strode to the pair, wrenched Johanna behind him, and glared down at the Beadle.

The plump man furrowed his brow with a grin on his spit-beaded lips, as if he thought the barber was joking with him. "Come now, Mr. Todd, hand her to me. The Judge's been wantin' her back for ages." He cast Anthony a sneer, which read like a child's jeer - _And there's nothing you can do about it!_

Johanna grabbed a fistful of her father's sleeve, mouthing a prayer she dreaded would go unheard. _Please don't let him take me. God, I'd rather see myself dead. _She crammed her aching head against the rock of Todd's forearm, hid her eyes from sight and seeing.

Her father's body vibrated against her forehead as he spoke. "She's not going _anywhere_." The coming silence he used to his advantage. He jerked his daughter further away from him, using his elbow, closer to Mrs. Lovett.

The baker noticed this with a bob of her head, and immediately grasped the girl's hand, towing her to the side. She made certain to barricade Johanna from the group by pushing one arm in front of the girl's stomach, then casted her a small, crooked smile; a smile that said everything was going to be fine when the both of them knew it was a lie. The smell of blood was already marking a stain in the air.

"Mr. Todd," the beadle toyed with the bronze handle of his cane, "I'm sure you know this, but for the sake of clarification, I shall elaborate. Judge Turpin isthe most powerful man in all of London. " His cheeks inflated on '_powerful_' like a guppy. "If you oppose his wishes, then you'll be hanged for sedition towards the crown."

He extended his glove towards Johanna, his pudgy face coated with what was meant to be an amiable smile. "Give me the girl, and only the sailor's name will be listed on the court summons...and execution record."

Sweeney inhaled deeply, and his eyes darted in his skull as if he was actually considering the Beadle's offer. Johanna, with tears burning her eyes like wasp stings, assumed her father was intent on sending her away again, and she shifted toward him to speak, to beg he reconsider. Mrs. Lovett yanked her farther back, and scolded her in a whisper. "Yeh stay put, now."

But it was not the Beadle's offer that had Sweeney thinking - it was his next move, either defense or attack. Todd's flicking gaze paused on the bakery exit. He was silent as he meandered over to the door, heeled it shut with a mild _bang_, and bolted it. He spoke lowly, only turning to his opponent when he had finished. "Why would I_ ever_ hand over my daughter to you?"

That had been it; the point of no return. Mrs. Lovett bit her tongue and proceeded to haul Johanna back another foot. Without a doubt, Beadle Bamford would not leave the house alive.

There was a stunned silence. "What're-" The Beadle sent the two of them a baffled frown, which converted into a boorish grin. He squealed like a pig. "No-o-o! Jesus, Mary, and bloody Joseph-!" He bent down, cupped his knees, and snorted out an attack of chuckles, his voice nasal due to the snuff shoved up his nose.

The man's chuckles became winded. The laughter eased into watery hiccups. He huffed and stood straight, a faint stream of tears touching his chin. "My God," he exclaimed as his skin flushed with the remnants of a good laugh, "Benjamin Barker."

The difference between the two men - one gawking and wiping tear-tracks from his swollen cheeks, the other glaring to kill - was staggering. Johanna glanced between the two of them, her eyes never resting on one face_. Her father had revealed his identity.. But surely he had some sort of a reason, a plan? _Johanna bit her tongue. _That was it. He _had_ no plan!_

Johanna craned her neck to catch her father in a stare, but he avoided her, as if he was forcing himself not to look at her. She soon mistook the glint in his eyes for _only_ anger, when his eyes were fiery enough to spark Bamford's immolation on the spot.

The Beadle's humor was strained after that. He glared at Johanna, as if he was remembering something she had told him, and paled a bit. He gnawed on his gloved knuckle, then turned to Sweeney for further elucidation. "Oh, dear lord," he muttered when he noted a slight resemblance between the two, cursing his own stupidity. He lowered his hand. "Well, Barker, the positive outcome of this visit is seeing what hell prison must've been for you."

Sweeney, with a hand shoved beneath his coat, scowled and his eyes sank. His tight lips indicated there would be no response to the comment.

"Yes," Bamford murmured to himself, backing away from Todd, his greasy fingers disappearing into both trouser pockets. He glimpsed at Johanna, then at the form of Anthony, still planted near the parlor. Face blank, the Beadle stepped a foot closer to the girl, the corner of his lip raised after she closed her eyes and clutched Mrs. Lovett's hand.

Sweeney kept his eyes nailed to the other man, and when he stepped towards Johanna, Todd did so too.

"You'll be slaughtered for your escape, Barker. I hope you realize that by now." Bamford's breath lessened into a wheezy pant as he stared at Johanna. "I'll put a word in requesting you're drawn and quartered if the Bureau is pleased with my little _discovery_."

Mrs. Lovett stationed herself in front of his face, offering the nastiest smile she could offer. "Feel free to step back, now," she spat, but her anger was stomped out by the Beadle's snort. He shoved her aside, leaving Johanna unprotected.

Todd jumped forward, but failed to reach the two of them before Bamford yanked a fistful of the girl's hair, and shoved her against the swollen mass of his stomach, her back to his chest. Todd eased back a bit, one hand raised in the air, the other digging for his hidden razor.

"I don't think an execution would be enough punishment for you, boy." The Beadle said, preoccupied with the image of Benjamin Barker rather than the grown Sweeney Todd. He pushed himself closer to the door as Johanna squirmed in his arms, glancing down at her while she sobbed quietly. He snapped for her to shut up, and she did, her feet dragging in sync with her captor's, daring not a sniffle or whimper.

This sounded alarms in Sweeney's head. _She listened to the Beadle?_ A thought flew into his mind; the finger marks on the Beadle's wrist in St. Dunstan's. As Sweeney studied the pair, he noticed Johanna's nails were digging into the exact same area, above the rim of his gloves, below the cuff of his sleeve. It was suddenly difficult for the barber to breathe.

Lovett's eyes were glued to the two of them as she approached Sweeney's right arm beside the door, the direction the Beadle was ambling towards.

The Beadle stopped to speak because it was too difficult to walk, talk, and cart around a wriggling female in his arms - though the notion of holding her so close was beginning to arouse him. "You have quite an enjoyable child, Mr. Barker. A delicious little thing." He laughed and sniffed a fistful of her hair, the grin lining into a playful frown. "Or has Mr. Barker not been informed?"

Lovett averted her head to the side and whispered, "Slit the pig's throat." Her gaze was a mask of stone with a worried frown etched in her skin.

But Todd's face was lost, like a child terrified to move. He stared at his daughter without working a muscle or shifting an eye. Mrs. Lovett switched her gaze to the dirty crevices of her floor, realizing that he would continue to remain frozen until he learned the truth about his daughter. _Oh_, _Bugger_.

"Oh, I see. The bloody nit hasn't told her daddy everything, has she?" sneered Bamford.

Johanna shrieked something at her father, perhaps a cry for help or a demand that he ignore the Beadle. But Sweeney remained oblivious to all voices other than Bamford's, and his quirky smirk was enough of a response for the Beadle to continue. _Go on, Beadle_, it read, _do indulge me._

"Little slag." The Beadle ran his hands across her sheet of blonde, and bobbed closer to the door. " Yeh see, it was always rather fun with her." He smiled as he played with a fond thought, a dazed smile growing on the wrinkled mass of his lips." That is, when I was nubbin' her."

Sweeney inhaled sharply, his eyes lingered on Johanna's flushed face. She shook her head, like she was trying to deny it. She bit her lip, sputtered incoherent cries, her body immobile.

"Yeah?" Todd whispered, his voice airy and distant. He seemed to be in a different place, thinking of different things - the way a small boy would shield himself away from the world he did not want to see.

"Absolutely," the Beadle affirmed, as cheerful as a bloke on morning stroll. "Unfortunately for me, though...The Judge seemed to get up her skirts far more than I did."

"Stop it!" Johanna wept, flailing like a fish plopped onto dry land. She beat her fists back against his stomach, her arms thrashing around her. "How could you?"

"And there it is!" The Beadle guffawed, continuing with a jeer. "The spitfire I've had to live with for all these years!" His voice wavered, cracked. "Dammit, I gave you a chance, girl! And now you're father will roll in his grave because of you."

"_Please, please_!"

"Shush," he pursed his lips, wrenching her around to shove his face in her's. The sleeves of her dress wrinkled in his iron-tight fingers. "Let your father hear... Hear how he held you down and took you as you _screamed," _his voice finally rose, thunderous_, "_ like your _whore mother_-!"

The weight on her body was gone, the hands gripping her forearms had unclenched and disappeared. Johanna staggered into the sharp edge of the counter.

There was scuffling noise to her right, the sound of bated breath, hissed curses, and the crisp snap of bone. When Johanna saw the sight, she screamed and collapsed to her knees, cramming herself into the counter's thick base.

Her father had tackled the Beadle to the ground, dug his knee into the lump of Bamford's side, and pounded one fist after another into his gut. Spitting blood, Bamford stomped his feet onto the floor, rounding up enough friction to slide away from his assailant. But the blows never stopped, never paused or faltered in strength. And as Todd's body rocked from left to right, the razor poked out of its holster, slipped from beneath the coat and onto the floor at his side. The barber noticed the weapon was there when a flash of silver shimmied beside him. It looked so cold without a hand wrapped around its handle, so alone and vulnerable.

Sweeney grunted and kicked the razor away from him, ridding himself of the nuisance. He was perfectly content with using his fists. His knuckles cracked against the Beadle's potato nose, his flabby mass of cheeks. He thought of the bastard's smug eyes and began to claw at them while the other hand kept the punches quick and precise.

The steady click of a gun silenced all sounds and stilled all movements.

"Get up." A voice snarled, the tone as metallic as the cocked gun.

Todd was baffled as to who held a gun at his head - the voice was almost demonic - but thought it better to get to his feet and step back. That had been an unspoken rule in prison_: It's all fun and games in Botany Bay, but surrender your fists when guns come to play._

What Todd did not expect was to see Anthony clutching his Derringer pistol with a parlor pillow nestled on top of the barrel. And the boy had not been pointing it at the barber, he was directing it at the prone figure of the Beadle, who stared into the nozzle with a set of scratched, bleeding eyes.

Anthony took in a steady breath, closed and opened his eyes, pupils dilated with fury, the gun dancing in his palm. He said to the Beadle, "Tell me I shouldn't kill you."

Johanna released a peeling cry from behind them. Sweeney, as he watched the sailor perform what was to be an execution, switched his gaze to his daughter. When she met his eyes and went to reach for him with a quivering hand, he frowned and directed all of his attention toward the scene before him. He was going to enjoy this, even if it meant Anthony was to shed the last remnants of his innocence if he pulled the trigger.

Squelching in a pool of his own blood, Beadle Bamford crossed his arms into an_ X_ above his head. "I was never harsh, boy! By God, I gave her a chance-!"

Anthony bent forward and shoved the nozzle into the Beadle's nose. "That's not what I wanted to hear. I told you to beg." A pink ring was imprinted in Bamford's skin as Anthony inched the nozzle away from him.

The Beadle pushed his head toward the cowering Johanna. His oozing eyes begged her, ripped her apart for lenience.

"Don't look at her!" Anthony cried. "Don't _ever _look at her. Look at me!" Tears sprinkled from his eyes and tapped onto the Beadle's collar. Anthony growled and wiped his eyes with a free hand, muttering a curse. "Beg!" he sobbed.

"For heaven's sake, child! Mercy!"

A wiry smile touched Anthony's lips. "And let heaven watch you now as you scream"- with the pillow still perched on the nozzle, he leveled the gun between the man's eyes- "and as you beg "- he balanced his body, legs burrowed into the floor, distanced.

"Our Father," the Beadle whispered to the ceiling, his breath too short for volume, "who art in heaven-"

"-as _we _watch."

The bullet whirled, the gunfire was reduced to a hiss and thump as it dug a hole in the Beadle's brow. The pillow swallowed most of the sound, serving Anthony's purpose. He tossed it across the room to ensure the barrel's heat did not cause it to catch fire.

The girl's screams were louder than the gunshot; a set of wounded howls that resembled a Banshee when Death drew near.

As Anthony turned to console his beloved, Sweeney pulled him back by his sleeve and shook his head. "We need to finish this." He then addressed Mrs. Lovett, who was currently holding Toby close to her - The boy had run from the parlor when he heard the screaming. Lovett was whispering words meant to ease him as he shook and wrestled with tears. Sweeney jabbed a finger at the girl, which served as another way of saying _keep her quiet_, and Mrs. Lovett tugged Toby along as she went to obey her partner's wish.

The sailor and barber retrieved the pillow that had been tossed to the floor. They placed it under the Beadle's heavy head. Sweeney lifted up Bamford by his legs - or the sagging fat hanging from his hips - and Anthony hauled the corpse by his bulging waist, cradling the pillow against the back of his skull. As Todd navigated them towards the bake-house, Mrs. Lovett silenced Johanna's cries and entertained the two children with a simple (yet very distracted) parlor song.

The Beadle's dead-weight was immense, a decent competitor with the logs of wood and wheel-barrels of the deceased Todd had carted around in the Bay. Only this labor he enjoyed, fantasized about it in late hours of the night. The Beadle was _dead_. Would the dream register as reality when the Beadle was crisp ash in the bake-house oven, or later on, when he least expected it?

The death, soon enough, sparked itself as a truth when Todd had returned up the stairs with Anthony, after the Beadle's carcass had been punched and kicked into the oven. He had spat on the disintegrating block of fat and threw the blood-splattered pillow on top of Bamford's eyes, still frozen in horror, flames sprouting from the bullet-hole between his eyes. The corpse's lips were shaped like an oval, frozen on the word_ 'hallowed'_ of the _Lord's Prayer._

The anger in Sweeney's blood was enough to douse the fire in the oven, even when he returned to the bakery. The kitchen floor was a mess, blood splotched onto the wood where the bullet had pierced through the back of Bamford's skull. Mrs. Lovett had her back to the mess with the children huddled in front of her, therefore blocking the area. Soft singing resonated from the group, the cockney tongue serenading the two children.

The sight of humanity is what finally broke the sailor's murderous demeanor. He choked back an array of tears, clutched the barber's arm as the truth of what he had just done knocked the sense out of him. "My God," he rasped, his tearful stare positioned on the splatters of blood.

Todd took him by his shoulders and spoke softly. He knew the boy was mortified, he had experienced the after-shock of a murder first-hand. But Anthony was so unprepared, so terrified, and - Sweeney pinched his eyes shut for a moment - so _young._ "Lad, you had to."

"Christ, Mr. Todd," the boy sniffed, his shoulders hunched, bouncing up and down, "I _killed_ a man."

"No, son. Not a man, a monster."

The boy ran his runny nose over his sleeve, marking a trail of snot. "Yeah, but it's n-n-not the same."

Sweeney's patience was beginning to chip and peel. "I _told _you, boy. I said you would learn in time. The world's not a pleasant place." He led the boy toward the staircase, pointing up at the black abyss that was the hallway. "Go into the shop and wait for me."

Anthony gazed up at him, gaining composure through anger. "I want answers, Mr. Todd. "

Sweeney dipped his head up and down, his tone fixed with understanding. "You'll get them. Go."

As the boy slipped away, Johanna popped up from the group, almost unrecognizable. Her face was a mixture of blushing red and ash-white, her eyes were blood-shot, her hair disheveled and unkempt. "You killed him!" she shrieked, barring Anthony's path to the stairs. She held her hands out like an offering, balled her fists, trembled."You _killed!_"

Before Anthony could glance at the barber for help, Todd was there, pinning the girl's wrists in one hand and cramming her against the staircase wall with the other.

Anthony took the opportunity to hurry up the stairs and enter the barbershop.

Johanna shot a worried glance at her useless hands, bound by her father's fingers, and returned her eyes to his. For once, she was afraid of what she might see there. And with good reason.

"You lied to me."

Johanna shook her head, despite the tears that pooled and dripped past her lids. The salt burned the teeth-marks on her lips. "I didn't mean to," she whispered.

The grip on her wrists tightened, the lack of blood paled her skin. "But you did," he snarled, and beneath the rage that coated his black eyes, there was a glint of hurt, of betrayal.

And the worst of it was that she had been the cause of it. "I'm sorry," she offered through building cries, "I was scared-"

"Of what?" he yelled, tearing her from the wall, and pushing her through the bakery with no real destination in mind.

"Of _this!"_ Her cry carried throughout the room, echoing like a haunting shrill. "I couldn't tell you...It would have hurt you!_ I_ would have hurt you!"

"You speak as if you haven't." He cupped her shoulders and pushed her up against a bakery door, ripped her away from it, and backed her blindly into a table. "You lied."

"I didn't, papa!"

"Stop fucking calling me that!"

Mrs. Lovett left Toby seated in a booth, scurried over to Todd, and skidded to a halt. She worked at prying his steel fingers away from Johanna. "The both of yeh need some time," she muttered, but the two of them continued to scream and sob and stumble around the shop. _Like a pair of idiots_, her mind snarled.

The impact of the girl's ribs against the counter knocked the air out of her. Gasping, she stumbled forward into Sweeney's chest. Her fingers unclenched as she reached to clutch his coat lapels.

He slapped her hands away, threw her against the wall again. "YOU _LIED!"_ And to his horror, his fingers had begun tearing through his empty holster in search of the razor. He glanced at his daughter, horror creeping into his face. His body had almost raised a mutiny against his will.

Johanna did not dare to breathe. Her eyes were puffy slits, but remained fixed on her father's rattling fists. She jumped an inch, silent as he punched the area beside her head to support his weight. He was looking down at her, lost in his own twisted world.

A sight shot into his thoughts - Lucy clutching the scraps of her dress to her bare chest as she crawled through London streets, her hair slicked to her head with sweat, spitting blood onto the cobblestones. And then the image fled, Lucy's eyes became her daughter's large blues, her daughter's bloody lips, her daughter's tormented, pleading face.

It was like he had committed a true sin; like he had laid hands on his wife, the spitting image of his child. Bile flooded the back of his throat, he perspired, and crammed his fists against his chest. Something singed his old heart, and he realized it had been love. Love was his vice, love would be his downfall. He thought this over, as his head blared and burned, and then came to a simple conclusion: If he did not leave the room, he would, without a doubt, spontaneously combust.

Mr. Todd spun around to say something to Mrs. Lovett, forgot what he wanted to say, and slipped up the stairs after snapping his mouth shut.

The baker stared after him. That had always been Sweeney Todd; the calm after the storm, always spiriting away after raising divinity against hell in a lone room. Leaving her with two terror-stricken children; Toby holding back sniffles, Johanna white in the face, ready to vomit in the nearest mixing bowl. Lovett gave her a once-over, instantly realizing that the girl needed to absorb the shock of it all before anyone touched her.

So the woman turned to Toby who was curled in the booth. He appeared lifeless without a bottle of gin in his hand.

"Toby, I know yeh must be scared," she sighed, coming up to his side and placing a hand on his shoulder, "but that man was an awful fellow, and Mr. Todd didn't want anyone 'urting 'is daughter." She bent her knees and squatted, eyes leveled with his, "And I need yeh to keep it all to yourself, love. Can my good lad keep a secret?" She brushed her knuckles along his brow, sweeping any stray hair out of his eyes. She knew she had to be gentle and calm - the boy would only panic if she was distraught. Somehow, though, she had to focus his attention on the morality, rather than the crime.

Toby turned his solemn eyes to the baker, a sober understanding in them. "Those things that man said," he inhaled a shaky breath, "about Johanna-"

Ruffling his hair, the woman hushed him. "Were awful, I know, and-"

"They were the things," Toby's words slipped in front of her's, "that happened to me mum. My real mum, that is."

Mrs. Lovett was silent, staring at the layers of hair on the side of his skull. Once she had grown fond of little Toby, she had had often found herself questioning his past. _Did he know his parents? How did he end up in the workhouse, never mind that awful Pirelli? _And as the answers stared her in the face, she found a certain dread overcome her. Did she really want to know now?

"I was young. Perhaps a tot, or so, but I remember it all. Yeh see, the bad things often stick in me mind the worst."

Mrs. Lovett smiled slightly. The boy spoke as if he had thirty years of experience on her.

"Me mum was a...er," he squeezed out the next word, eyes closed and wrinkled like raisins, "she was a _whore._" He spat the word like a bullet from Anthony's pistol. "We traveled from inn to inn, always the crowded streets near Whitechapel. She'd bring home these strange men and tell me to go to sleep. But we shared the room and the bed, too..."

The boy smoothed out his hair and swallowed. No doubt he would request a healthy swig of gin after this.

"All the things that fat man said he'd done to Johanna was wot they'd done to me mum. Some of the punter's friends would be allowed to look on, too. I'd been a stupid git, I didn't know wot any of it was till I'd got to the workhouse."

"There, there, love. Yeh don't have to continue." Mrs. Lovett said, if only to silence the boy. She cast a worried glance at Johanna. The girl remained stationed where her father had abandoned her, like a prisoner on line for the guillotine.

In spite of the baker's intentions, the boy blubbered out the rest of what he planned to say. "She gave me up sometime later, said the bills were too 'spencive. Sold me off to the workhouse." The boy's voice somehow steadied, and he spoke like a wise, philosophical old man. "I can still remember 'er face when she dropped me off. She snatched a little baggie of coins and looked at me. Was she sad, maybe happy? I don't know, and at night I try not to think about it."

The voice of a lost, melancholy child returned. "The last I 'member of 'er was 'er dirty skirt bouncing above her ankles and the click-clack of 'er shoes." He wrung his hands in his lap. "Warden came by a week later, said my mother was found dead on the side of some road. She'd done died of a disease. I s'pose that's why she gave me up..."

Though the woman normally would have been intrigued by the boy's tale, her attention was distracted by Johanna curled against the wall. The girl's silence was spectral. No matter how enraged Sweeney was, he would not enjoy storming down the stairs to find his daughter dead on the ground.

"Love," she murmured to Toby, "I'm goin' to tend to Johanna, alright? Yeh sit 'ere and 'ave a nice pie while yeh wait, and tomorrow, we'll go out for some toffees. Sound good?"

The boy blinked a few times, silently registering Mrs. Lovett's dismissal. It took him some time, like he was discerning the taste of a certain food, and then he frowned, grimaced, and glared at her all in the same second. "Sounds wonderful, mum," he muttered, the aroma of his scent lingering as he clambered from the seat to the front exit. The door whistled open and slammed shut behind him.

Blood pounded in the woman's ears. It had been the first time Toby had ever stormed away from her. And now it was time to tend to a young and traumatized girl, when it should have been her father comforting her - not his landlady!

Johanna did not even breathe when the baker approached her.

Lovett had to sprawl a smile on her face, had to force a drop of amiability in her words while she confronted Johanna. "Love," she tried, "yeh can't stand there all night."

Johanna blinked, the only indication she had heard a fragment of what the baker had said.

"Why don't yeh lie down in the guestroom, eh? Get yourself some rest."

The girl finally flicked her eyes to the woman, pain rippling circles through the ocean-blue."He's not coming back to me, is he, Mrs. Lovett?"

The woman frowned at the answer, but would have otherwise cheered at her success of making the 'dead girl' speak. She snorted at the thought of fisting her skirts up to her thighs and doing some sort of jig.

"I think 'e just needs some time. Same goes for yeh."

"He hates me because I deserve to be hated. I'm a"- her tone was cold, like ice-"a slag."

"Watch your mouth," Lovett admonished under her breath, but giving the circumstances, she admitted the girl had a right to be angry_. _Her father - in other words, her shield, her armor - had just whipped out her heart and crushed it; just dug his heel into it and left her all alone_. Sure, Johanna kept the truth from him, and Mr. Todd probably felt he was a lousy excuse for a father, but isn't this sort of repercussion a bit harsh for the girl? The _real _victim?_

The situation was hopeless; Nellie was leaning towards the idea of throwing her arms up and retreating into her bedroom, snuggling against the downy pillows and winter blanket.

The idea came to her on the spot, her fatigue only supporting it further. "Come stay in me room tonight, honey. You'll drown yourself in all those tears."

Johanna shook her head and insisted she remain where she stood, squinting through her swollen lids.

"Nonsense," the woman had already begun directing her to the bedroom by her dainty shoulders, "yeh need your sleep." The two of them passed through the parlor, the only room seemingly untouched by all the mayhem - it glowed with light, smelled of incense.

They approached Mrs. Lovett's bedroom, next to the guestroom where Johanna had been nursed to health. As Johanna studied the door opposite of Nellie's, frustration sparked and flamed, her teeth jarred together. She rammed herself against the door, head to the wood, fists balled by her temples.

When Nellie placed her palm on the girl's shoulder, Johanna truly began to wail. She threw herself away from the woman and punched the oak panels until either the wood or her knuckles cracked, screeching, "God, come back, papa! _Please_! You're my_ heart_, my heart, m-m-my-" Her hands squeaked against the wood as she slipped to her knees, hacking while the sides of her throat grinded together. Mrs. Lovett hurried inside her room and returned with an empty chamber pot.

Johanna heaved into it, but released nothing. She shook when the room was warmed by the glowing embers of the parlor fire. Lovett massaged the child's knotted muscles. When she was through, Johanna wiped her lips and whispered an apology, which Mrs. Lovett shushed with flaying hands.

"Right, love, 'ere we are," Mrs. Lovett sat Johanna on her bed and fiddled with strands of her fair hair, cupping the girl's chin to mutter sincerities when she had run fresh out of things to say. Johanna gazed up at her, her face free of any sorrows, a lost child scuttling towards the faintest source of light. When Johanna wrestled words to her mind, but never past her lips, she fell into action, too empty to speak, too hollow to cry anymore. She gripped the billowing folds of the woman's dress, right at her hips, and leaned in, her forehead against the woman's stomach.

Mrs. Lovett was motionless, her hands frozen in air, her eyes marking the girl's head with uncertainty. Then, as her mind wandered off, she locked her arms around Johanna's shoulders and remained still.

The girl did not utter a sound.

Within a half hour, Johanna was tucked into Lovett's bed, the sheets a cocoon that shielded her. The covers rose and fell like they were alive as she breathed deeply, in and out.

In the corner, Mrs. Lovett sat in her plush armchair, leafing through a book she would never read. The action seemed to preoccupy her hands, as her eyes hovered over the slight mass of Johanna's body. As if she had just woken up from a good night's rest, Nellie was overwhelmed with a burst of adrenaline. She rocked herself into a trance on the chair, the child's breathing simultaneous to the swaying of her feet. The day's events read over in her mind like a novel.

Nellie Lovett tossed the book over her shoulder, pinched out one or two strange, cold tears, and swayed on that armchair until the sun tangled and entwined with London's chimney's.

Honey-colored rays beamed into the room, a light breeze tickled the lace of the window curtain's, and swept in sprinkles of snow.

Mrs. Lovett finally stood on her two sore feet, slammed the window shut, and drew the curtains. The flat was blessed with darkness.

She stood for a moment, then eased back into her chair, the black shade of the room lighter than her gaze.


	47. Chapter 47

**Chapter 47**

Anthony was curled in the barber chair when Sweeney finally reached the shop door, entering with a slam behind him. The boy jolted up, mouth opened to fire an array of questions. When he caught a glimpse of the man, Anthony sat back down and kept quiet, wiping his face clean of the tears he had released in his solitude.

The barber was panting. He smoothed his tangled hair against his skull with one hand and balanced his weight on the edge of the vanity with the other, fingers white around the glass rim. He released a deep huff from within his chest, his body hunched in a U-shape over the photograph of his family. His eyes sealed closed, then opened again, fastened on the smiles of his young wife and baby. With a locked jaw, he set the frame face-down.

Anthony swallowed a cough and cleared his throat without the intention of grabbing the man's attention.

But Anthony received Sweeney's attention anyway. "You want answers," Todd muttered. He was still doubled-over the counter, glaring at his own reflection as if to see who would blink first. His stares burned with pure fury - fury that burrowed deep into his eyes, down to the pupils. As if he was disgusted with himself.

"Yes, sir," the boy exclaimed. He shot up and spoke to Sweeney's back, which rose up and down with labored breath. "If you're prepared to give them now."

The sailor took Sweeney's silence as a response - a positive response.

"First off, how did you and Johanna come to know each other? She never mentioned you," his voice fell to uphold respect, "and you never mentioned her..."

The man's breath steadied. He thought back to a distant time, when he had been certain his wife was standing before him in his barrack. She would have been a hallucination had the other men ignored her, a dream that would have been one of many. And he would have accepted it as a rare gift. He could have sunk the floor and died right there. Because that day had been the closest taste of heaven he had received in fifteen years.

And now he was stuck in this nightmare; certain he was going to end up either dying or killing. With his luck, he wagered it would be both.

He inhaled again. "I was a convict." Sweeney's spine lined up. "Fifteen years in a labor camp. Johanna"- he sighed - "arrived there months before my escape." He met Anthony's gaze with a frown, and half expected the sailor to strut through the door and wave down he nearest constable.  
"That enough?"

With teeth ripping open his lower lip, Anthony nodded at his own thoughts. His fingers swam in the folds of his jacket, then dived into his pockets. "My captain was right about you, Mr. Todd. He didn't trust you anymore than he trusted a typical pirate." He chuckled, though he was not humored in the least. Using his thumbs, he rubbed his eyes sore. "Prove him wrong, sir. Start from the beginning."

Scowling, Todd snapped, "What d'ya want to hear?" He stomped a foot forward. Anthony did not jump, cower back, or bat an eyelash.

"I want to know your charge. Your life before I met you. I want the truth, Mr. Todd." His voice sounded empty; empty and strange. "We've come this far."

Against Todd's superior will, his feet took him across the room, to the broken window, and back to the vanity. He continued this like a hypnotist trying to entrance himself, until he stopped short in the middle of his laid-out path, shook his head, and resumed his pacing.

"Remember what I told you...the story?" Sweeney asked.

"Story, sir?" The boy wore a thoughtful frown. "I'm afraid not, and I don't see what relevance this has-"

"Think." Todd glimpsed at the city, tar-black shadows blanketing the roofs.

Anthony gritted his teeth, raked the floor with his eyes, and lit up when the answer came to mind. His voice was a triumphant call. "Yes, sir. You spoke of it when we arrived..." There was an uncomfortable still, too awkward to sustain. Anthony switched his gaze from the floor to his friend, both surprised and elated at his own discovery. "It's you," he gasped. "The barber you spoke of...it's you." He ripped off his jacket, the wrist-cuffs stained with blood, and threw it onto the seat cushion.

_Eureka; it only took months for the boy to realize that. _Sweeney shrugged the remark away. "Yes."

The sailor may have attempted to keep himself reserved, but the outcome was a race of comments and hands flying through the air. "You were sent away because a tyrant coveted your wife, then - "

"Judge Turpin." The name seemed to cart around a taboo.

The words halted, replacing the silence. "But..." Anthony gazed around the room as if looking for a response printed on the chipping wall-paint. "Johanna's mother?" He swallowed past a lump in his throat, the words clustered on his dry tongue. "He...he...wanted the _both_ of them?"

Biting back a growl, Todd breezed past the boy. The comment had been made, and the damage, done. Now, Todd's mind took over the responsibility of driving him mad with guilt. Again.

_The both of them. He had allowed a monster to ruin his wife _and his _daughter._

It was tormenting - the images, the nausea, the two of their sweet voice so strained and so shrill. At the moment, as Todd's thoughts ran free, he wrestled the urge to console his daughter. He had left her in a terrible state, to say the least. Guilt was never a common emotion within him, but as usual, his daughter festered things from his soul he never would have thought existed.

"Sir?" Anthony started to speak, softer than before. When he turned to the barber, there were the beginnings of pain in his face. "I love Johanna. Nothing can alter that." He breathed in. "However, I am certain she does not feel the same way for me."

Todd shook his head. Without giving him a chance to speak, Anthony pushed on.

"The only love I see in her eyes...is when she looks at you." The confession was not a bitter one, merely an observation - one that forced Anthony to brush a hand over his eyes. "But you told me this, Mr. Todd, and I've thought about it every day. Sink a bullet into the world for her, right?" Casting a frown at the door, he added, "At least, that's what I've done tonight."

Only looking at him, Sweeney pitched a silent question - _What are you saying?_

"I suppose I wish to get this point across." He slapped his palms together and held them in a ball. He opened his mouth before speaking, and kept it open as he thought over his words. "Johanna's a part of my responsibility as well. From the very moment I swore to steal her from the Judge..." He shook his head, his voice sincere, "I can't go back on that promise now. Not now. If she wishes me gone, then so be it. But I won't so much as leave her side until she is free of Turpin." Determination was written in his tone, then fell as he reached the resolution of his speech. "And then I'll go."

Sweeney was so lost in the boy's words, he had barely any room to contemplate his own thoughts. This boy, who had just dug a bullet through another man's brain, was so selfless, so _good._ Anthony was a man now. And, Sweeney realized, Anthony was the man he had always envied. Not because he was naive, or young, or in love with his daughter. The reason was evident; it was because Anthony Hope was pure. He had emerged from such horror - the horror had driven the barber to insanity - and became a man. A protector, not a murderer.

Sweeney reeled back a foot.  
_It had been survival, not revenge_.

And that was what sparked the idea. An idea which led to a night of pacing, murmuring names and places, planning. The hours ticked like seconds as the two men calculated what would become of the Judge. How it would happen, where it would happen...

Their eyes flicked across the floor as they sat, their voices low and uttered through whispers. They offered suggestions, overrode them, argued on a time, bickered over the location. For once, they were equal. Yet they only united in reprisal.

Once it was morning, Anthony stood to head off, and shared a last glance with the barber. It was a quick one, wedded with hate and respect, and exited through the door. Sweeney's knees cracked as he stood and departed with the sailor at his side.

The two of them descended down the stairs, careful not to slip on the thin sheet of snow that coated the steps. London was sprinkled with white like a large, frosted pastry. As the pair strode down the street, carriages swept sludge to the side of the road and clogged the sewers.

Anthony glimpsed at his companion's face - his flicking, dark eyes and tight scowl. "Mr. Todd, why are you following me?"

The man snorted, "I'm not."

"Oh," Anthony said, the word spoken in silence. "Then where are you going?"

Sweeney mumbled, "The market," under his breath.

Eyebrows rising, the sailor made to speak, but cut his speech off with a curse as his foot sank in a puddle of sludge. Cold, dirty water splashed on his pant leg. He slapped his trousers with his palm, specks of dirt showering the snow beneath him. When he was through, his hand dripping slush, Anthony spoke in a more agitated tone. "Why the market?"

"I made a promise." Todd's eyes were trained on the crossroads ahead.

Instead of questioning him, Anthony decided to let it be. As they approached the intersection, the sailor began to veer to the left. He turned and walked backwards slowly, mouthing words that were lost to the rumbling of carriage wheels. But Sweeney understood it perfectly - _One week, sir. Until then. _

One week. He had waited fifteen years for freedom, but a single week seemed to surpass that in centuries.

Sweeney continued straight down the road, diverging from clusters of citizens, slipping past street vendors who bombarded every passing person with goods. St. Dunstan's was by no means any less crowded than London's streets. Todd snaked through the crowd, silently eyeing every face.

It took him an hour to finally find the man he sought. Across the way, John observed a flower cart, arm in arm with a woman of cherry-red curls and modest smiles.

As Sweeney approached the two, he noticed the woman had pain wrinkles creased between her eyebrows, crescent frown lines on either side of her mouth. Her eyes were light as she glanced at John, who was currently making a show of sticking a rose in his mouth and performing a sloppy tango. The woman giggled as he hauled her into the dance, and froze when he noticed Sweeney leaning against a flower cart, staring at them.

John whispered something at his wife, pointed out the vendor, and slipped the rose into her hands. She sent Sweeney a glance before skirting over to purchase the flower.

"Ben," John greeted as he came up to him, hands crossing his chest, an awed look to his face. "Never thought you'd seek _me _out."

Todd's head fell to the side. "I said I would."

John was quiet for a moment. Then, in a burst of energy, he seized the barber's shoulder and did all he could to keep his voice low. "You're going to kill him! The Judge!"

Nodding, Sweeney muttered, "In a week. Before the talk starts."

"Talk?" John's furry brows scrunched together. "Bout what?"

"The Beadle's dead."

John took in the news with a small grin. "How the hell that happen?" When John saw his friend's furious glare, the smile fled. "Ben?" His voice inflected. "What did yeh do?"

Pulling up to his face, the barber hissed, "He told me that he and the _bloody_ judge fu-" He shrunk back, almost collapsing against the vending cart. It shuddered under his weight as he leaned against it, hand smoothing his hair into a curvy wave. "-my daughter..."

"So yeh killed him."

"The sailor kid," Todd corrected himself, "_Anthony_, shot him dead. We burned the body."

Glancing around, John leaned forward and stroked his bare chin. "What of your daughter?"

"That doesn't matter," Sweeney snapped. "I'm here to tell you the Judge will die in a week. I don't care if you help or not."

"I will, and you know that bloody well." The man glanced at a couple loitering by them. Again, he hushed his voice. "And I always assumed Johanna had been hurt by those two-"

Todd's words thundered, "Well, I just found out!" He grimaced, gritted his teeth until it hurt. "She can run off with the sailor, for all I care."

"Ben, don't tell me you're angry with little lady!" John protested.

With a growl, Todd folded his arms across his chest, jaw clenched. "She lied to me." Though he wanted to believe it, to place as much blame on Johanna as possible, he knew that she never actually lied to him. She had avoided telling him. And with that truth rested another. He only pointed a finger at his daughter to cover his own guilt, the fact that he had failed to protect her when he swore he would.

But another man, another voice other than his own, telling him this was unacceptable.

"Barker, yeh might as well 'ave saved a bullet for her, too. Yeh know just as well as I do that she'd never do _anythin'_ to hurt yeh."

"John," in a soft tone, Sweeney spoke, "since yesterday, I've killed two men." He smirked a bit, his black orbs dancing. "Don't tempt me to make it three."

"Oh, fuck you, Benjamin Barker."

The red-haired woman approached John's back and entwined her arm with his, almost like a child claiming what was hers. She cocked her head to the side and studied Sweeney Todd, frowning as she said, "Darling, though I do _hate _to interrupt, I believe it is time to go home now."

"Now, Ruth," John chastised with a playful half-grin, "don't yeh want to be properly introduced to me friend here?"

Appalled at his cockney tongue, Ruth warned under her breath, "John..."

"It's quite alright, doll. This here's Sweeney Todd," John lifted a large ham and gestured at the barber, "we met years ago." He met his wife's eyes. "Fifteen, to be exact."

The woman glanced back and forth between the two, and fumbled for the right words. Her husband had been imprisoned for longer than fifteen years. Twenty, in fact.  
_Which could only mean..._

"Pleased to meet yeh," the woman murmured, her accent akin to her husband's. She nodded her head, and her loose braids released a few strands of hair. John glanced over at her once, then twice, suddenly captivated. He tucked the loose hairs behind her ear, lost in the radiance that only he could see - the beauty beneath. She giggled when he cupped her chin and jerked away from him.  
"Not here, John," she whispered, lowering her eyes.

Sweeney shot a look at a basket of white daisies. The air was freezing, but his chest felt comfortably warm. His hand opened, his fingers reached for someone who was not there.

"Very well. Good day, Mr. Todd. Always a pleasure." John offered a grin rather than a hand to shake. "I think I'll stop by for a shave in," he paused as if to think, "let's say a week."

"After dusk." Sweeney looked towards Ruth and buried himself in explanations. "Customers are infrequent at night. Wouldn't want your husband to have to wait." It was a white-lie - customers were infrequent at night, usually. The reason for John's time of arrival, though, had nothing to do with customer traffic. In fact, shop would be_ closed_ that night.

"Brilliant," said John, tugging on his wife's arm. "Till then, Mr. Todd."

Before her husband could lead her away, Ruth extended a hand and rested it on Sweeney's folded arms.

He stared at her white gloved fingers, which now doubt encased coarse, working-class hands. When he summoned enough courage, their eyes met.

"God bless you, sir," she murmured.

John whisked her away after that, without a second glance at Sweeney. His voice carried over the buzz of people.

"You buy that flower, bonnie lass?"

Ruth's laughter rang and faded, as did their bodies, into the mass of buyers and browsers.

Sweeney only moved when a vendor offered him a deal on a wild-flower bouquet. And when he moved, he broke into a jog down the streets. But even with a destination in his heart, he felt lost. A wanderer with a goal, without a home.

When he arrived at his house, his trousers were a mess. He had not the time nor the patience to try and brush off the grime; he handled it with a glare and the stomping of his boots.

Mrs. Lovett was outside in the dining area, a tray of pies atop one of the center tables. She had thrown a sheet above the wood to serve as a make-shift tablecloth and piled stacks of plates at either end. Silverware balanced on the porcelain, napkins were pinned to the table beneath her hand as the wind tugged at their loose ends.

People were lined up, grabbing pies, scarfing them down, and tossing coins over their shoulders.

Lovett caught sight of her partner when a customer turned to thank her. She said something to the man next in line and meandered to the sidewalk with an apologetic smile towards the line. People groaned and some shot off line to stroll down the street. The cloth napkins she had been holding flew from the feather and flapped into the street like a hundred dove wings.

She had not noticed.

The barber met her half-way, and kept their distance secured. His face was blank to question.

"I decided to leave some samples out for me customers," she said, hands digging into her hips. Her speech seemed shy, like she had so much more to say, but her posture posed a thousand threats.

He did not speak.

"Toby came back, too." Pointing at the shop, she said, "He's in there helpin' me with the pies." Her face lowered, but her voice had a sharp edge to it. She was trying to prove a point. "See, I apologized to the lad. And now everything's fine, it is."

Sweeney blinked - _The boy had left?  
_Needless to say, he really did not care. Though the curiosity lingered.

The woman jerked her head towards the door. "Johanna's in me room. She won't move or speak or nothin'." Her eyes flashed, her tone was soft and keen. She leaned forward and jabbed a finger in his face. "Make it right."

With that, the baker turned on her heel - which proved idiotic when she nearly slipped on melted snow - and returned to her line of customers. A breeze pushed strands of her hair from her eyes and toyed with her skirts. All that remained of her were the small footprints in the mud.

There would be no use starting a fight, he knew. Especially not in front of so many wandering eyes. Without a reason to stay, he, too, deserted the spot, and wandered into the house.

Toby was behind the counter, which seemed a twinge out of place since it had always been Mrs. Lovett's spot; the area she retreated to.

The boy looked up from his work - pinching floury dough into pie molding - and gave the man a muttered greeting. Sweeney ignored him, instead pointing down the hall that led to the parlor. "Is Johanna still in the room?"

Slightly agitated, Toby rested his powdered hands on the wooden , baking slab. "She ain't left. Ain't moved. Silent as Death, sir."

Sweeney's mouth was suddenly dry. He licked his lips, and walked down the hallway, his neck craned so he faced the floor. The only sight he was worthy of seeing.  
Silent as Death...What had he done to his daughter?

As he approached the bedroom door, a sudden temptation took over. It would be so easy to escape back to his shop, sit down, and wait for the week to pass. In fact, he stole a corner in the parlor room and stood at attention, waiting for the nothingness he expected, thoughts shouting over each other. His legs were sore, and he imagined his ankles had swelled up after shifting from one foot to another. He stared into the lit fireplace until his eyes watered and his nose burned at the slightest whiff of smoky wood. It was hours when he finally moved again, destined to the bedroom door once more. His body ached, like it had the first day he was summoned for roll-call in the Bay.

The inner battle was won, the father in him was then stronger than the demon. He opened the door and faced whatever awaited him inside, though he was certain it was going to be a new version of demonical hell.

The room was empty but for Johanna, cross-legged at the foot of the bed where he remembered placing himself. He willed back the painful squeeze in his chest at the memory.

Johanna did not move, nor turn when he floated in the doorway - silent and lifeless. Her hands shook in her lap, but that was the only indication of her awareness.

He breathed in and swallowed, taking half of his prepared words down his throat. His mouth opened, closed, and tightened all in one second. "Johanna, come upstairs." He held out his hand, and it shook like hers. If she did come to him, it would be a miracle.

Her upper-body rotated toward him. There was nothing in her tired, bloodshot eyes. Just emptiness, and it lingered even when her eyes closed. It was like a prodding at a bruise on the man's heart.

"Please, Johanna," he tried once more, stepping a foot closer.

Her pretty voice was rasped and brutal. "I don't want to."

Todd's anger flared. "I told you to come here."

A flash of fear crossed her face. Without looking at him, she held out her hand and slid across the bed, towards him.

His expression offered silent praise, but she failed to see - the wall was the object of her attention. He took her hand in his, pulled her to her feet, and went to close the space between them.

Her hand wriggled in his grip, she shrugged away from him. "No," she cried again, "leave me alone."

Instead of a human response, Todd whipped her body closer to his and growled, "Stop it, Johanna."

Sniveling, Johanna countered, "I want to see Mrs. Lovett."

"She's not your mother!" He barked. "_I'm _the only one you've got."

At this, her tolerance snapped. She lifted her free hand and slammed it into his chest, applying all her strength to push him away. He did not budge, he was as mobile as a stone sculpture. She shrieked in frustration and squirmed like an insect, gripping his arms and hurling herself away from him - without the slightest release. "I want to be alone! None of you can help!"

Fed up with her fit, Todd chained her in his arms - her feet hanging off of the ground - and struggled from the room over to the staircase. Johanna grabbed at walls and doorways, only to have her clutch torn as he wrenched her away.

In the kitchen, Toby detected Sweeney's curses and the soft grunts Johanna released, along with angry sobs. Without a glance down the hall, the boy lifted the pie-tray and sauntered out to the dining area. He kicked the door shut behind him, and returned to the kitchen for only a fresh stack of white napkins.

As the barber hauled his daughter up the stairs, she clung to his neck and gaped at her swinging feet. Her temple rested against the side of his brow, his skin burning with anger, hers clammy and perspiring. He loosened his hold on her, applying less pressure on her ribs and arms, and released her once they had opened the barbershop door. Her feet were set on the floor, but she still did not uncoil her arms from around his neck.

"Johanna," he said, unwinding his arms from around her. He jerked her shoulder with his hand - No response. With a sigh, he directed her to his chair and sat her down, kneeling in front of her, holding her wrists and stroking her hands with his thumbs.

Her eyes dodged away from his.

After endless minutes of staring, Johanna turned straight and gazed at him. Todd had to look away in order to avoid the profound pain, the condemnation.

He almost spoke, and caught himself before he could. His lips sealed shut to comments, like a preverbal child. As he glared at her wrists, a red mark across her lower-arm caught his attention. He turned her wrist upward, and there, carved in her milky white-skin, was the scar left from the incision he had made on her. The cut was swelling from irritation, and he swore loudly as he realized he had been the cause of it. He had practically man-handled her up the stairs, and had been oblivious to her healing injury the entire time.

"Stay put," he ordered her.

He was gone from the spot before she could meet his dead, black eyes. And though he had dragged her to the very spot she sat, thrown her about the house like a common doll, she was terrified he was going to leave her.

He returned within the minute, a bowl of water in hand. A handkerchief was draped over the side, half-drenched. Johanna cast her glance from the bowl to her father's face. As usual, he revealed nothing. The hollow chuckle of the bowl's contents matched the emptiness of his eyes - empty, moving.

Kneeling on one knee, he propped the bowl on his thigh and grasped her tender arm. He silently traced the line of her scar, the contact so soft it almost tickled her sore spot. He drowned the cloth in the water with both hands, wrung it lightly, and looked at her.  
"Take a deep breath," he ordered in a strenuous voice, always so low and so sure. "This _will_ sting."

Johanna's initiative reaction was to nod her head, but found herself paralyzed to movement. She did as he said, and took a deep breath, squeaking like a mouse when he pressed the cloth onto her skin. It was freezing - melted snow, she assumed - and the milky flesh around her injury reddened to a bright scarlet. It stung like an ice-pick lodged in her bone.

"Sir, it hurts," she whined, her spine digging into the seat's backing. "Please stop."

His eyes brewed with anger. He kept his grip firm on her wrist and gentle on her wound, the cloth secured around her arm like a cast. She strained to rip her arm away, but as she attempted to, her father's hand instinctively tightened. She yelped and remained frozen.

By the time her father had uttered a low growl, she had not a clue what he was talking about.  
"You called me _that_ again."

Johanna sucked in a quick breath. "What?" she asked. Her teeth were slightly clenched.

"You called me 'sir'."

The warm air washed over her skin when he removed the cloth, but fell numb after Todd dunked the cloth in the water and patted it onto her arm.

She gasped, squeezed her eyes shut, and protested. "The last time I called you 'papa', you screamed at me an' told me not to call you that." Her brows arched, angry wrinkles festered in her skin. "So I shan't."

"Good," he mumbled, the dissatisfaction clear in his expression.

Johanna fell quiet, scrambled for a reply, and grimaced. "His Lordship hated when I called him 'papa', too. He didn't know I was referring to you." She stared at him as he avoided her at all costs, massaging her tender spot with his two forefingers. He seemed infatuated with his work, though his head boiled and his heart pounded away.

She went on, relentless. "You drove me mad, you know. I heard your voice everywhere. And I saw your face in the asylum."

His hands retracted as if she had burned him.  
_This is a punishment_, his mind swore_. If God really exists, then the bastard's smiting me with all he's got. Well, I'm still standing, bleeder_.

"I was dying without you for all those months. You were my everything." She choked on a few tears, and then whipped out a final slur. "You wouldn't believe that, would you? After all, I am a _horrible _liar. But it is _so_ hard to reform when you lie too."

Glaring at her, the man ripped the cloth off of her arm, drenched it for the third time, and slapped it onto her skin. Freezing droplets sprinkled onto her upper-arms. She jumped forward and yipped.

"I never lied to you," he hissed as he seized her arm - without even grazing her scar. He hauled her closer to him, though she wormed herself out of his grip.

"Yes, you did," she exclaimed. To her own disbelief, she threw her nursed arm around his shoulder and tangled a small fist in the hair off the nape of his neck, ensuring he did not pull away from her. Their brows brushed, her tears flicked onto his chin. The cloth on her arm plopped on the floor, water patterns blooming on the dusty floorboards. "You said you wouldn't leave mea gain!"

"Stop," he rasped.

"I told you, I told you," her cries were soft enough for him to decipher the words behind them; "I can't live without you. Not in this world. So please-please-_please_ don't ask me to."

His own eyes stung. Neither of them moved when the bowl crashed to the floor and splinter in half, water seeping through the floors - so slick and light, unlike the thick blood that had once stained the floor's crevices. He slipped his hands onto her cheeks, shook his head softly. "I'd never." He circled the dark, spongy circles beneath her eyes.

"Pa-" she cut herself off, and wandered away from his gaze until he lured her back to him.

"Say it." He was begging her, without concealing his desperation. He needed her, needed the piece that kept him together, if not whole. Never whole.

She did. "Papa..."

Once her tears reduced to a quiet stream, Johanna slipped from her seat, onto her knees like Sweeney. Her scalp barely reached his chin, and he had to stare directly down to meet her wide anxious blues. The redness in her eyes was tangled like undergrowth.

His spine rattled with shivers as she traced her father's face - his eyes, his brow, accented from the years of starvation, his gaunt chin. His skin was cold and hard like marble; her fingers brushed over the bristly remains of a shaven cheek. As she pushed his hair away from his face, she noticed how brittle it was, like straw.

It was like caressing a skeleton, clinging to a ghost of a man.

And to him, it was holding a piece of God - the God he had cursed, hated, and doubted for a quarter of his life. It was a gift in his arms; heaven was just as real as she was. Fate was not punishing him. Johanna had been sent to him as his savior, to give dead eyes sight. To send the dark, agonizing years light. She was innocence, she was clarity, she was youth. She was a bit of his wife and a bit of Benjamin Barker. She was his reminder.

But, above all things, she was _his._

And then, fifteen years of living in absolute hell had submitted to the moment.

He permitted himself a minute, and then descended back to earth.

Gripping both of her hands, he directed them away from his face.

"Come with me," she said and abandoned her knees for her feet, standing. She held out her hand for him, which he took once he, too, had stood. With a slight grin, she led him to the shop door.

The night air was dry and crisp, the snow a thin powder on the balcony handrails. Johanna's hands seemed even paler as she gripped the wood and gaped at the night sky. Her father studied her from the doorway, shook his head, and shuffled over to her side, his boots crunching on the snow. Their breaths fogged in front of their faces and faded.

The sky was littered with stars, shimmering like scattered tear-drops. They were the only source of light, emitting a dim, white glow. There was no moon. There was no breeze. The world had stood still, directing eyes and wonder to her studded skies.

"Do you think mother is up there?" she whispered, more so to herself than him. He knew this, yet he studied the sheet of stars, anyway, and brought himself to give her an answer.

His eyes centered on the brightest one, glittering over her sisters like a large gem. He slipped his fingers through Johanna's and pointed out the star in silence until he spoke. "She's that one - the northern star. The one that led me home, to you."

Her eyes dance with awe that outshined all the stars in the sky. Her fingers shifted as if to grasp the light.

A shooting star shimmered across the sky, and dove into a patch of darkness.

They said nothing after that. Their hands fell at their sides, still entwined in a gentle grip. They stayed that way for what could have been considered a lifetime.

Even as Johanna sat upon her father's bed, burrowed beneath his arms, and told him of every living nightmare she had experienced with the Judge .

When she wept without sound and recounted every word her master had spoken to her, every accusation he had chided her with.

While she spoke of the pain in her stomach that later enflamed her heart and soul; the dreams she had dreamt of her father, and woken from alone.

When she described the nostalgia that drained every joy from her spirit - the helplessness that nearly claimed her life.

Even as Todd blinked furiously, the angry tears stinging his eyes; as he drowned in silence when Johanna gave way to the words, and the emotion behind them disabled her speech.

They held hands through it all. Through the tears and the silence, the hate and the abounding love. And they remained clasped in a hold that would not falter for the rest of the night.

But after that, the days would take flight, and shoot by like they ,too, were stars.

All too quickly.

**Hey, all. I'm**** so**** sorry for the wait. I've been held up by a lot of things, lately, and beg for all forgiveness from all of my readers and reviewers. I hope to update before school starts again (Now, won't that be fun, kids?) **

**:) Until next time!**

**And please review.**


	48. Chapter 48

**Hey, everybody. I'm so sorry for the delay. Things have been really hectic…I have no excuse, I know. But I've done all I can to throw together a decent chapter.**

**I love all of your comments, by the way. They really motivate me to write.**

**I look forward to reading your reviews! Thank you all and enjoy! **

**Chapter 48**

One week.

Within the duration of a day lived the breath of a second. The idea of a long-abandoned revenge blossoming like a new-found obsession. His thoughts were fresh, still strong enough to churn and boil his blood. And he paced, and he thought, and he waited. With a conflicted mind doubting the justification of murder—condoning it.

It was to free himself.

To free his daughter.

And as the week reached its end, Sweeney Todd could not help but wish to turn back time, and relive that one week over again. To prolong the inevitable.

But the burning hunger would not be abated.

Tonight would be the end; the final hour was approaching. Somewhere, a judge was preparing to visit him; without an inkling that the breaths he drew were to be his last.

Todd had written Judge Turpin a letter earlier that day. Once it had been folded and sealed, Sweeney had summoned Toby, instructing the child to scamper to the Old Bailey during noon recess and deliver it into Turpin's hands. The boy was obedient, and returned within the hour, uttering a response only when confronted by the barber himself—The letter had been distributed. Afterward, Toby fell into a bakery booth, a bottle of gin inches away from his tiny fingers.

With Johanna pressed into his chair, Todd paced the upstairs floor, silent and brooding. The note, it still read over in his mind, devoid of voice. The delivery had taken place in the afternoon—it was sundown now—yet his mind conveyed every word down to the last period.

_The Honorable Judge Turpin, _

_ This letter concerns the well-being of your ward, Johanna. I had only been informed of her abduction from Fogg's Asylum when the sailor, who now holds her captive, requested my assistance in housing him in my home. I offered him my confidence as well as a room to stay in below my shop. _

_ I do so offer you my humble assistance in the matter. I advise you to visit my shop after dusk, post-haste. The sailor will be asleep then. On further note, bring no one else with you. Should the sailor spot a crowd of constables, he is more than likely to flee from the law and wish your ward further harm. For your safety, as well as the girl's, come alone. No one need know of this nasty altercation._

_ The girl and I will be waiting for you in my shop. She speaks fervently of seeking your forgiveness._

_ It would be a pity to deny her that._

_Signed, _

_Sweeney Todd _

Lies.  
A scrap of parchment packed with a lie of every kind; false hope, a pretence of friendship, a faked kidnapping...  
Praising the Judge, even through a sloppy script, had enough power to make Todd nauseous.

He hung back on the window-pane, nursing his aching forehead with the icy glass of the window.

What truly nauseated him was knowing the gamut of the situation rotated around his daughter. It was setting up a trap for the vulture to fly into, and Johanna was the bait bound in the center.

Sweeney grazed the setting sun with a fixed stare.

Why did this all have to involve Johanna? Why _his_ daughter?

If there could have been any other alternative, any at all—!

"Papa, why must I go to Anthony's inn?"

Slightly thankful for the interruption, the barber swung around and hovered beside his chair. Eager as he may have been, it had no effect on his speech."Because," he grumbled.

"But it doesn't make any sense, papa!" She fixed her lips into a pout and bared her arms over her chest. She could not help but smile when she received a reaction from him; he sank into a crouch in front of her seat, staring back into her eyes.

"Don't you wanna spend some time with Missus Lovett and"—_Christ, what was his actual name?_—"Toby?"

"Of course, but—"

"Wouldn't it be nice to get away from the house for a while?"

"The house, yes. But not _you!_"

"And am I not entitled to a moment alone with the lad who's courting my daughter?"

Johanna pressed a finger to his lips, and though her face was beginning to flush with frustration, she giggled a little. "I can't hope to get a word in with you interrupting me like that, father."

He fought the urge to chuckle and placed a quick kiss on her brow. With that, he stood, strode over to his vanity, flipping open the lid of his razor case. "You're going," he added over his shoulder, and a corner of his mouth rose as she gave a sharp "humph" behind his back.

_Perhaps Little Spitfire was better suited for her._

"Why tonight, though?" she asked in rebound of his dismissal.

For a moment, Sweeney was frozen, in both speech and movement. His eyes rose and his mouth hung open, a series of fragmented words serving as his reply. After clearing his throat, he faced the back of his daughter's blonde head. "Just thought of it really," he lied, swallowing back a cough.

"Really?" Johanna pressed. Her tone was light, but the suspicion built behind it posed as a threat.

Todd pounced before she could press any further, before she stumbled on the truth she could _never_ know. "It's an idea, dammit!"

His glare dared her to speak again, but went unnoticed as Johanna kept her face hidden from his. Her voice was thin, cracking and inflecting. "I just don't understand—why—why you're so in-in-intent on leavin' me."

He silently cursed himself for his stupidity; she was too delicate for him to even shout at. Sighing, he came up to the chair's back and began to loop his fingers through her hair.  
"It'll only be for a little while, my love." Once he untangled his hand, he offered it for her to grasp. She used it to stand, wobbling as her legs throbbed and shook, and her body arched back towards the seat. His grip on her shoulders steadied her stance.

Once she faced him, his palms swallowed her tiny hands. They were like slabs of ice, cold and perspiring. He rubbed them together to produce a flare of heat, murmuring, "Anthony's downstairs. He gave me a key to his inn, so it'll be just us on the way there and back."

The promise only seemed to distress her even more. "Along with Miss Nellie and Toby."

Sweeney glanced away and nodded his head. All the words in the world could not help him handle this one. "Yes."

Her silence was her last resort, a hazard to his unstable conscience.

The moment was so strenuous, he was surprised by the warmth in his tone. "Would you like to wear my coat?"

She nodded, crestfallen and defeated, but spoke aloud with the tiniest hint of gratitude. "Thank you, father."

"Stay here, then."

The shop floor whined beneath the soles of his shoes as he exited. He thumped down the stairs, into the pie-shop, and retrieved the leather jacket hanging on the coat-rack.

Mrs. Lovett's presence made itself known before she spoke—his nose twitched at the smell of pie crust and spices, her heels clunked nearer to his back and fell silent. "It's tonight, isn't it?"

He unhooked the nape of his jacket from the rack and flung it over his lower-arm. "Yeah," he muttered. Unlike Toby and Johanna, the baker was one of the few people he had informed of his plot, and she had supported him through and through—though this did not shock him at all. If the barber wanted to set fire to the capital building, Mrs. Lovett would have gladly supplied him with a book of matches.

"You're angry, Mr. T," she noted.

He shook his head and turned to leave, avoiding her eyes. "I'm not."

"Now, love—"

"Keep Johanna with you at all times, Mrs. Lovett." He finally met her gaze, the storm of his words drawing nearer. It was the soft, murderous tone he used when stating his ultimatums, the one she was all too familiar with. "And tell her _nothing_."

Mrs. Lovett sighed. "When'll we return?"

"_I _will get you when it's done."

As she nodded her head, his stature deflated. He walked to the stairs without glancing back at her. There was something about his stance that was almost human, which Lovett thought to be unbefitting for him.

Todd's following call was directed to the parlor. "Anthony."

There was the clinking of glass propped upon a table. After a brief rustling, the sailor popped into view, hovering in the doorway with his hands shoved in both pockets. "Sir?" He wavered a bit under the influence of alcohol.

"We're leaving."

Shaking the hair out of his eyes, Anthony sauntered forward and replied, "I'll be in the shop when you return." The smell of dry gin ran off his breath.

Mrs. Lovett cleared her throat noisily. Whether to flaunt her dignity or preserve his, Todd did not know; all that he was certain of was that as he sulked up the stairs to retrieve Johanna, he heard the woman call after him, "Make it a clean kill, Mr. Todd."

And as much as he tried, the words could not be sealed from his mind. They rebounded off of every murderous detail he had thought, brought hesitation to his steps. He mulled over _'a clean kill_' while pushing from his heels to his toes on the middle step of the stairway. The words felt distant to him, a language he had yet to decipher. Was it possible that a "clean kill" would benefit himself more than the Judge?

With a shake of his head, he continued to the peak of the stairwell to summon his daughter.

There was not a trace of surprise on Todd's face when he entered the shop to find John leaning over the chair, conversing with Johanna.

The two men exchanged brief nods before Todd jerked his head towards the door. "Come on, love," he said to his daughter. "Time to go."

Johanna obliged with a nod of her own, but continued her conversation with John as she shuffled over to the barber. "Are you here to visit father, John?"

The ex-con wore a soft grin, but his eyes did not shine as brightly as they usually had—they were dulled with darkness. "Yeah, little lady. I'm 'ere for 'im."

"Oh," her pause was laden with thought, "that's kind of you."

"Thanks, doll." John directed his attention to the barber. "I'll be here when you return, Ben."

Sweeney mumbled his appreciation, and when Johanna moved to grasp her father's arm, he shot his companion a meaningful look before leading his girl to the exit.

The faint smell of a freshly lit pipe wafted in the air after the door breezed shut.

Johanna followed her father down the steps to the pie-shop, the frown embroidered on her skin like a scar. He uncoiled the coat from around his arm and dropped it over her shoulders. After his approving half-smile, he opened the shop door and led her out into the night, Mrs. Lovett and Toby trailing behind. The baker and boy chatted quietly, uttering simple jokes and riddles along the way.

"Papa," Johanna lifted her skirts up a few inches as she clambered down the cobblestones, "you'll retrieve me soon, won't you?"

Sweeney shot her a glance. Her face was illuminated by moonlight, shining as the city drowned in darkness. Like a beacon. "Of course."

"And the inn is close by?"

He switched his gaze to the forking road. "Yes."

The grip on his arm tightened. When he glanced over at her, he noticed she was reading street signs and studying the stony faces of the buildings. Her eyes were fixed on one in particular; an apothecary, a solemn air surrounding its premises and fencing it in.

There were ghosts here. She felt them.

Sweeney could not fight the urge to stare at the building, a sharp fire in his chest. After whispering to his daughter a string of assurances, he looked away from her face, and submitted to the silence.

They reached Anthony's inn shortly afterwards. All in all, Johanna observed, they had cut across two streets and crossed five blocks, and yet, in such a short distance, the air was thick with salt from the port that lay across the street. A row of streetlamps lit the area like a straight line of fireflies, permitting the streets a gentle glow of light.

Todd browsed the line of doors, selecting the one labeled with a bronze _seven. _He fumbled in his pocket, withdrew a key, jammed it in the lock, and once again glanced at his daughter. Her eyes glowed as candlelight spilled from the opened doorway.

"Go," ordered the barber. He jutted his foot in front of the door to keep it opened, and gestured inside with a sweep of his eyes.

After one last look at her father—a wide-eyed frown—Johanna slid her hand over his arm and stepped inside, tightly cocooning herself in Todd's leather coat. Toby trotted in after her, eyeing the single bed with a childish interest. And Mrs. Lovett lingered outside, alone but for the barber.

"Now yeh listen to me," she warned. "Be careful. Don't make this 'arder on yourself than it 'as to be."

The barber screwed his face up with a bemused glance, like a mischievous boy sharing a joke with himself.

What was even worse was the way she spoke, reprimanding him as if he _were _a child. "I mean it," Lovett ranted. "Don't yeh leave that girl parentless."

"That'll never happen," Todd growled suddenly, and his voice evened into a whisper when Johanna's face popped in the frame of the inn's window. She watched him with troubled eyes, then disappeared from sight after Toby's muffled voice sounded from behind her.

"Soon as the judge's been dealt with, you come right back—"

"Louder, woman," Sweeney hissed. "Scream it so the whole damn world can hear you."

With a sharp sigh, she, too, lowered her volume. "All's I'm saying is—"

From the opposite end of the road, the sound of a carriage rattled against the deserted street. Horses whinnied and huffed, drawing closer, growing louder.

Mr. Todd drew his eyes to the sound, emotion bounding from his words, "I must go." By duress of his own mind, he turned to the street leading to his home, face fresh with a familiar emotion: Anticipation. It was a hungry look, one a carnivore would wear as he gnawed on a piece of bloody meat.

Mrs. Lovett rolled her eyes and pulled up beside him. She busied herself with straightening his jacket, still fussing, "I love yeh, Mr. T. Yeh know that, Lord knows yeh do." Pecking him on the cheek once, she added, "But every so often, you can turn out be a real git."

With a soft smirk, the man slipped from her hold and strode down the street, his eyes locked on the road with purpose.

Death rested ahead, waiting.

He never would have guessed that the Judge would meet him half-way there.

...

The carriage jolted as it rumbled over a street-hole.

Judge Turpin gripped the edge of his seat, the depression rattling his bones. On rebound from the shock, he bent forward and assessed the outside world through the side window. There was not a difference between then and before; a few whores posed on the corners, shady men in trench coats sent the carriage guarded glances.

To his relief, he discerned a street sign in the lamplight. Fleet Street was a mere distance away—Once they veered right on the coming intersection, perhaps a five minute ride.

The London port rested to the left; the channel, a snake-like strip of black. A row of inns lay opposite to the water, clustered together and overlooking the docks. Inside, the inns were either pitch-black or a faint orange from the illumination of flickering candles.

In one inn, however, a blonde head hovered beside the windowpane, regarding the street.

Judge Turpin's heart collided with his chest, and bounced wildly. When his eyes returned to the sight, the inn was yards behind them. The girl was gone.

His mind waged war between reality and conscience. The girl in the inn, her striking resemblance—Could it have been his ward?

Turpin stuttered to himself and slowly brought his hand to his head, grasping a handful of gray hair.

But Johanna was at the barber's residence…The letter had said so!

And that left him with only one explanation; not in the least plausible, and beyond ludicrous.  
He had seen Lucy Barker.

The idea was so far-fetched, so beneath him, Turpin had to choke out a guffaw. He pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, then massaged his eye-sockets.

Something, though, remained unsettled within him. A feeling, a presence he had not experienced in at least fifteen years. When he heard a voice beside him, whispering in his ear like a fellow passenger, Turpin shot against the door of the carriage and released a short cry.

In the whisper of a young woman, "_Get out."_

Turpin glanced about the cabin, his eyes wild with terror. "What?" he whispered, dreading the thought of being answered.

_"Get out."_

The feminine whisper made the hairs on the nape of his neck stand on end. He shut his eyes to cast out the voice, and instead received the reprinted image of the face in the window marked against his eyelids. The beauty of the face had disappeared, it was skull-like and transparent.

Turpin's eyes flew open.

To his shock, when he glanced out the window, he noticed Sweeney Todd marching alongside the carriage. The barber's shoulders were hunched, and his unusual glare was stationed on the empty space before him, like a medieval gargoyle.

The Judge studied him and smirked in realization. Mr. Todd would be a perfect escort to Fleet Street.  
Besides, nothing, by any means or circumstance, could have kept him seated in that carriage, taunted by the voice of an intangible woman. He would go bonkers.

Without the breath to speak, Turpin stuck his head out of the buggy, and rasped for the driver to stop. Frustrated at the weakness of his own voice, the Judge barked at the man in a louder tone, and the carriage immediately began to slow. Muttering a series of biblical curses, the Judge clambered out of the buggy and gained his footing as the horses pitter-pattered to a stop.

Relief washed over him as he waved the driver off and stalked over to Mr. Todd, his greeting cold and informal. "You, barber!"

Todd halted, one foot frozen in the air. He stomped himself into a straight stance, like a soldier called to attention. With an amiable smile on his face, Sweeney swerved to face his superior and uttered a greeting. "Your honor."

Turpin ignored the pleasantry. "Why is it that you are here and not home with my ward?"

Todd's eyes twitched, the only sign of ill-ease. "I thought it best to leave the sailor and take a light stroll. No doubt, he is now relieved and asleep."

The carriage rolled down the road, swerved past the corner. Before the buggy driver disappeared from sight, he offered the Judge's back an angry gesture.

Sweeney smirked a little.

Nodding to himself, the Judge asked, "And my ward is with this outlaw?"

The sound of beating hooves faded to a dim pulse.

Todd paused and wasted a moment with thought. "She sleeps, my lord," he began, and met the Judge's stare dead-on, "in my neighbor's home. The girl will be safe until your arrival."

"Then we must be off." Turpin threw himself into an eager march down the road, and turned to the barber in question when he did not follow suit.  
"Mr. Todd?" he said. "Why do you not follow?"

The barber smiled to himself, though he was not amused in the least. To him, the gesture was a sad one, almost a reluctant grin. There was something that had to be done first.

"There is something I wish to show you, your honor." Todd gestured at the inky strip of water, his voice floating in the air, light and distant. "Come this way, for a moment." He nodded his head as if in approval of his own judgment, though his conflicted gaze darted from one end of the street to the other.

The Judge gave an exasperated, baffled sigh. "What in the world could you possibly—?"

But the barber had already begun striding towards the channel, disregarding the Judge's protests. Without a glance behind him, without a word that suggested the other man should follow. Just a steady glare at what lay ahead of him, his fists clenched beneath his coat, gripping the object that rested deep within his right pocket—the one he had grasped moments before departing from the shop.

With no other choice, and an affront of swears, Turpin strode after him. "I hardly believe we have the time for this, barber. And if you do not lead me to my ward at once, I'll issue you a warrant for your arrest before sunrise."

Sweeney continued to walk, not a dent in his step or a word past his lips. This only irked the Judge further.

"Blast the warrant, I'll have you strung up immediately with that crude, low-class sailor!" He extended his foot over a muddy puddle and hauled himself past it, muttering under his breath, "The audacity, the _nerve_! I'll sooner grow a beard than deal with the likes of a barber again."

Todd reached the edge of the walkway and stopped, the tips of his boots hanging over the side of the wall. Water chuckled below him, lapping against the cement wall. It was like a large snake, slithering down the cannel in the glow of the moonlight, its gentle waves glimmering like scales.

Huffing and tugging on the lapels of his coat, the Judge fell into position beside Mr. Todd. Rather than an irate approach, he coaxed the barber with promises of a large sum once Johanna was returned to home.

Todd waved away the offer, following a patch of smooth waves with his dead gaze. "I'm gonna show you something, sir. Take a good look at it."

A gleam of bronze caught the Judge's eye.

Sweeney withdrew the object from his pocket, something shiny and rectangular. When he handed it to Turpin, all but peace was sprawled on his face.

The Judge noticed it was a photograph—a dated one, given the age-lines that creased its film—of a woman with a bundle propped on her hip. He squinted, and realized that the bundle was a beaming infant.

And it was the smiling woman that provoked a bit of panic within him. It was the visage he had seen in the window, lingering in his mind even when he closed his eyes. It was a face he had hoped to forget over the past fifteen years, and remembered with a dreaded accuracy. And beside her were the eyes of a child he had kept imprisoned all of her life, chained to his side.

Flicking his eyes between the picture and the barber, Turpin could only stutter, sigh, and furrow his pale, wrinkled brow. He tried to speak a second time, but found that to be a failure as well.

Todd could not help but smirk a little. "You know them, don't you, sir?"

"Me?" came the rasped answer. "I've never. You must"—he regarded the man in the faint light—"have me mistaken"—since their first encounter, it was the only time he actually looked at Sweeney Todd—"for another."

He _looked _at him.

And then he gasped, clutched his chest, and faltered backwards. A mix of loathing and shock stole his expression, transformed him. He held out a hand as if to ward off the memory, the realization. "Benjamin Barker." _Back from the dead. _

Set aside the look of grim satisfaction, Todd's face was composed of downcast eyes and a slight frown. "It's been some time, sir."

With a wild jolt, the Judge assessed the dark strip of city streets for a source of assistance—a constable, a carriage, a drunkard! Anyone with a set of eyes!

His luck was barren; there was no one in plain sight. As he darted glances towards Mr. Todd, he began to weigh his options. To shout for help may only anger his enemy, and Lord only knew what would happen to him then. He could always run, and pray he had the upper-hand, but no doubt an escaped convict would be a bit more agile than he.

In both cases, the odds had assembled against him.

Then again, he thought, he could always rely on the skill he had used to live by, the craft that had been bestowed upon him since birth: his clever mind, his sharp tongue. Perhaps, if he played this right, the outcome would be in his favor. Just perhaps…

"Indeed it has been some time." He shuffled farther away from him. "If only time would allow us to revisit such old friends more often." _Keep the topic light; do not lose your head! _"How have you been, Mr. Barker? Did prison offer you proper reformation?"

Sweeney could have laughed at this, or rather sliced the bastard's throat like a ripe apple. He swallowed, but still managed to spit, "We're not here to discuss me."

Turpin nodded, his hands held out like a ceremonial portrait of Christ. "But of course. Whatever you wish, sir." In one discrete movement, he slid to the side, hovering in a direction that was diagonal to the barber. The lights of a nearby inn illuminated in Turpin's eyes like a candle flame.

Noticing this, Todd added, "And don't try anything." He lifted the flap of his jacket, revealing a pistol—Anthony's—shoved through the straps of his trousers.

The Judge's throat began to close in.

Then, with special care, Todd whipped out his razor and flung it open while pinching its handle, dangling it before his eyes like it was a mere trinket. Finally, the eager sneer found its way to his lips. "_This_, however, is for later." He pocketed it.

When Turpin did speak, Sweeney wallowed in the fear that shook his voice.

"What do you mean to say?"

"I think you know."

The two of them shared a silence, but beneath the surface it was more than that. It was a moment that they shared; two men, a condemner and the condemned, a judge and his executioner. When the barber continued, the intensity thrived, whole and awesome.

"Look here, sir." Todd's fingers traced the blackness of the water. "This is where we stood, fifteen years ago." He turned to the older male, his tone almost desperate. "Do you remember?"

It only took the Judge a second of thought. "I do."

"It was the last time I saw my wife and child," an eyebrow twitched, his hand tightened, "together, at least."

As if he were a schoolboy, Turpin folded his hands and nodded again. "You're wife was a beautiful woman, Mr. Barker." To further spite him, the corner of his lip raised in a smirk. It had been against his primal instincts, but a chance to further torment the man seemed to hold so much merit.

Sweeney shot towards him like a bullet from the barrel. "I could kill you right now—!" His voice sank to a whisper; a dangerous, growl beneath his breath. "But there will be plenty of time for that." He seized the man's shoulder and hurled him forward. "The hell you've put them through is _nothing_ compared to what I've planned for you."

Ice clogged the Judge's chest. He grasped his throat and struggled to breathe, tilting his head to the side to better his volume. "I am a respectable Judge, Barker. Whatever fate has befallen your family is their own responsibility. I represent the Lord," he did all he could to add strength to his wobbling words, "and He does not condone murderers, nor does any other divinity. You'll be hanged and burn in Hell for eternity."

Todd's response was apathetic. "I look forward to seeing you there, sir."

The Judge's feet froze, his upper-body pivoted towards him and locked in place. Whatever fear that plagued him had either gone unnoticed or converted into rage. "If I shout once, I'll have a squadron of constables at my side within the minute. Keep away."

Instead, Todd did the exact opposite as instructed, and stepped even closer. His words carried like the wind brushing against Turpin's ear. "No, not here they won't. They'll think nothing of it." He withdrew the pistol and dug the barrel into Turpin's shoulder. "Now walk."

"For the love of Christ," Turpin hissed, the heel of his hunting boot jabbed in a pothole, "I told you to step back. Someone is bound to hear my call, Barker, and then—"

"And then I'll cut out your tongue," Todd said. His hand trembled with such anticipation, he could barely contain himself. He forced images of Turpin's corpse to his mind and one last command past his lips, as his finger burned and ached on the wooden trigger. "Walk." The gun offered a cold, metallic click.

Turpin did not need further convincing. His feet automatically broke into a stride, the echoes of his shoes reverberating down the stone corridors. Despite his current predicament, Turpin indulged in small talk as if he were in recess. "Where is it that we are going, barber?"

"Fleet Street."

"To your shop, I assume?"

Todd grunted in agreement.

They rounded a corner.

A thought crossed Turpin's mind, and it carried a brief moment of peace with it; a surge of hope. When he spoke, he spoke with the smallest of smiles. "Will my ward be there as well?"

There was a cold chuckle. "No, you'll _never_ see my daughter again."  
_I'd rather swallow one of my razors than allow that._

When the Judge spoke, his words were quieter, as if sorrow had stomped on his voice. "If you plan to kill me," he inhaled deeply, "then take this into consideration. We both care for Johanna, do we not? Would you dare slaughter the man who raised her through both childhood and adolescence?"

There was no hesitation. "Yeah, I would." A pause ensued until Sweeney began to ponder out-loud. "I wonder if I should be grateful…I mean, you're the reason that Johanna had a home after you butchered my wife."

The true, hungry fire of Todd's anger burned. Smoke seemed to fill his eyes. "Then again, you're also the reason she was sent to a madhouse, and can't close her eyes without me at her side. She cries through the nightmares, breathing like she's been strangled." He pressed a free hand over his eyes, tore it away, and dug the nozzle of the gun deeper into Turpin's muscle. Tears poked from the corner of the barber's eyes, but they did not fall.

A blast of nausea hit Turpin in the stomach. He felt a river of vomit pool in the back of his throat.

"She told me everything. How you bragged 'bout killing my wife and I, or when you threw her down on a wooden floor and—" He could not force himself to say it. Licking sweat from his upper-lip, he broke into a rhythmic chant, and it seemed to bring him a sense of stability. "Just get to Fleet Street. Fleet Street. Fleet Street."

"If you release me now, I'll say nothing of this," Turpin whispered behind him, though he was certain there would be no answer to his proposal.

And he was correct.

For the duration of the walk, they received little disturbance. Only a cluster of silent men had crossed their path. Their eyes shifted away from the Judge, they averted their bodies to the side to conceal the packages pressed against their chests. A suggestion clicked into Turpin's mind in an instant—They were most likely smugglers. And because of that, they scampered by as quickly as possible, whooping like gun-slingers when they reached the end of the street without a "halt" or any other confrontation.

Consequently, they did not notice Turpin mouth a plea as he was marched down the walkway with a firearm digging into his back.

Nor would they care if they had.

Other than that, the streets were barren to late-night pedestrians, driven into their homes by the winter cold. 

So by the time the pair had stepped onto Fleet Street, no one had seen them. Not a soul caught a glimpse of the Judge as he shuffled down the road, no one detected the sound of the two of them ascending the wooden staircase to Sweeney Todd's Tonsorial Parlor.

And once they had vanished into the shop, there was nothing left to be seen by outside eyes.

The door whisked shut.

And the city slept.

"Ah, Ben, you're back!" John exclaimed, prancing over to the doorway as soon as it had opened.

Inside trailed the Judge with his hands held stiffly upfront, the force of the gun hunching his body forward.

"And you brought me a judge. How thoughtful."


	49. Chapter 49

**So lately I've been reading that some authors are totally for fan fiction, while others would gladly toss you through the system for uttering a word about their precious characters. So I'm going to put a nice little disclaimer on my work just in case…**

**I don't own Sweeney Todd. (Though I do wish he was real. How I'd love to time-travel to the Victorian Era and attach myself to his arm. "Lucy **_**who**_**?") **

**There. **

**Chapter 49**

"Sit down." Todd jerked his head to the side, one hand pointing out the chair, the other slipping the gun through the strap of his suspenders. As his hands brushed the buttons of his coat, he mumbled something under his breath and shrugged himself free of the jacket. He threw it to the side, and it flapped into a pile on the floor, missing the lid of the trunk by an inch.

With enough insolence to hold his head high, Judge Turpin scoffed, "This ought to be interesting," hitching his robes above his feet before he shuffled over to the chair. He plopped into it with a deep sigh and observed his shared company in silence.  
"The sailor," he noted, an air of arrogance surrounding him like a mist, "I don't believe I learned your name."

"I don't believe you need to know," Anthony snapped. He lowered his voice to a calm, almost soothing sound. It made the Judge want to retch, to blot out the sound with his fists.  
"My name won't save you."

The Judge was quieted by the underlying threat, but his mind screamed and raged and roared like a twister of conscience. "Perhaps," he said, "the name of the Lord will save us all." He ran his dry, sand-paper tongue over his lips.

John was the next to reaffirm his presence, this time with a short bark of laughter. "Spare me the biblical horseshit. I'd rather swallow one o' those silver razors than be lectured on 'ow _we sinners should turn from wickedness_ or _'ow God loves us all_." With a wide, acidic grin, he added, "I've spent twenty years bein' told that."

Assessing the stranger who had just spoken, Turpin blinked a few times, cleared his throat, and spoke in a tight squeak, like the squelching noise leather made when rubbed together. "And you are…?"

John's voice evened into a cold, steady base; verbal black ice. "The name's John, your honor. You sent me to the Bay after I swiped one o' your co-workers purses."

Turpin did not even attempt to speak, or rectify the situation with another 'devout' lecture. His tongue was heavy and his hands, quivering. For once, the facts had mutinied against _him._

Sinking deep into the chair, Turpin pinched his eyes shut as if to thwart the sound of the ex-con's voice—Oh, yes, he sure as hell remembered now!—the ex-con he had sentenced twenty-five to life in a penal colony.

"The funny thing, your honor, is this—the blighter I jumped escaped with a black eye and some scratches, while I ran off with his purse, and me sentence was attempted murder," John said, twisting and wringing the joints of his knuckles until gave way hollow cracks. "Did yeh know that money was for me son—my _sick _son, no less? And if I 'adn't given it to 'im before the law got to me, he'd be dead."

"That is no excuse!" Turpin chided, and with greater difficulty, he got to his feet. Shivers raked his spine after he abandoned the warmth of the chair, but heat boiled in his blood as he pointed an accusing finger at John. "There are laws set aside for citizens to follow—and you broke them!"

"Tell me, sir"—the men's attention turned to the corner of the shop, beside the locked door, where Sweeney Todd mindlessly fingered the edge of a razor—"is it written that a judge can send men to their deaths on trumped-up charges, and destroy their families thereafter?"

Turpin's foot shot back, followed by the other. He began a slow retreat, his hands drawn before his chest, warding off the demon in the corner. "It isn't written, Barker. It isn't." He shouldered the broken mirror, and winced as a shard dug into his coat. "But if you release me, I can appeal your case to the court. Your records will be erased, you may walk the streets and use your true name—"

Sweeney growled like an animal and threw himself into a mad pace, storming over to the Judge with his razor brandished like a firearm. "You think I give a _damn_ about that?" He struck his arm out and clutched the collar of Turpin's coat, then flung the Judge against the jagged mirror.

The mirror wobbled on its two feet and plummeted to the floor. Glass shattered across the floorboards, clinking together, pummeling the wood like hail.

"Fifteen years in prison, a dead wife, a stolen child, and the_ least_ you could've done was _raise_ my daughter," Todd's anger broke apart, his voice became moist "...because I couldn't..."

Under the barber's steel grip, Turpin writhed for escape, and given the opportunity, he wriggled to the side and pushed himself away from his opponent. Pain burned the muscle of his arm, and only when he glanced at his sleeve did he realized a shard of glass, now wedged into his skin, had pierced his coat.

Turpin's arm would not keep steady, so he doubled his grip with his right hand as he grasped the glass, ribbons of blood reaching his wrist. He yanked the fragment out of his flesh, released a terrified, battle cry, and wielded it in front of his face. Sprays of red dotted his skin and coated the glass shard. "Keep away, all of you!"

John bellowed with laughter as he withdrew his own weapon—a steel hunting knife with rigid teeth on its blade and a curved point.

"You're going to kill us with a piece of glass?" John sauntered forward, his words so authoritative, so eloquent, it was as if he had waited an entire lifetime to say them. "Well, that sure is interesting. Even though I plan on shovin' that piece o' glass down your throat, sawin' off your limbs with this 'ere blade, and throwin' yeh into the harbor, I do wish to set the record straight—you died with good humor, Judge Turpin."

A wild, screech of laughter burst from the sailor's slight profile, which was stationed right beside John's knife. Anthony buckled over, hands on his kneecaps, his torso shaking with a winded fit of humor.

Todd observed the sailor with a frown, and when he turned to John, the frown managed to touch each end of his jaw.  
The two of them were hysterical; John with his hunting knife, Anthony with his clenched fists and jangled laughter.

Drunk with power, giddy,_ mad_—They were unrecognizable.

"Come, Mr. Todd," Anthony straightened his spine, and tugged on his collar, revealing the creamy skin of his neck to keep himself cool. "Let's paint the Thames red!"

Sweeney fumbled for the nearest wall so he could lean into it.

John and Anthony had advanced on their prey, knocked the shard from Turpin's grasp, and thrust him to his knees, the bits of glass digging into Turpin's hands as he palmed the floor and struggled for the exit. Anthony wrenched the Judge back by the lapels of his coat, while John used the gap of space between Anthony's arm and torso to kick the Judge in his throat. The old man fell flat onto his back, his head crashing against the floor as the sailor and ex-con wrestled with his squirming figure, sinking their feet into his gut; over and over. Nothing else remained but the rhythm of their blows, the pulse of their punches, the beat drumming like a running man's heart.

Todd fumbled in his pocket until he found it—the picture of his wife and child. He needed the comfort, the sweetness of their smiles as the Judge _screamed_, and gurbed mouthfuls of blood.

But the photograph seemed to have dulled with age since he had last seen it, only a few minutes ago; Lucy's eyes did not shine, Johanna's smile had somehow faltered.

These faces were not pure. These were the images he had seen in prison, on those cold Australian nights when his family did not console him, but haunted him.

Words suddenly rang true in his mind, words that had once made no sense at all.  
_Make it a clean kill._

The Judge vomited another pile of blood, but this did not pause, or even put a dent, in his assailants' attack.

This was not clean—these rubies were dirty.

Todd glanced down at the picture again, and this time he could actually feel his mind divide. His head blistered with pain—God, it was unbearable—he felt something warm grasp his heart, and something cool smother his burning palms.  
There were hands atop his own, delicate hands, gripping his scarred fingers, directing his blade forward. And before they released him, before he could look up, a finger stroked the bridge between his thumb and wrist, and the beautiful hands had disappeared.

He looked up, emptiness staring back at him. But the scent of flowers wafted to his nose; roses among the blood that drizzled though the floor-board creases.

_Her_ voice whispered in his ear.

The photograph slipped from his limp grasp.

_Remember that I love you._

Sweeney drove himself forward, dividing the barrier John and Anthony had set with their backs. The two of them swore from behind the barber, uttering ill-tempered remarks.

Mr. Todd stared down at the gory bundle that was Judge Turpin. Air whistled passed the old man's lips, blood spraying from his mouth with each exhale, and choking him as he inhaled. The barber hauled Turpin up to a sitting position, using the chair's leg as support for the Judge's spine.

Todd lifted his razor, so that it was eye-level with the both of them. Turpin gazed at it through the swollen slits of his eyes, saying nothing. And Todd said nothing, though his own eyes pitched a thousand undecipherable emotions—black hatred, hesitancy, regret, and the foremost, sorrow.

Behind them, Anthony and John's complaints had lessened and lessened, until only the shrill wind rattling against the shop's window could be heard.

Judge Turpin glanced at Benjamin Barker, all barriers dissolved, all masks discarded.

And after a second of reading the barber's eyes, Turpin tilted his head back, exposing his throat, with both eyes squeezed shut.

The veins that ran across the Judge's throat, like ink-scribbles, were all too enticing. The barber tightened his grip on the rose-engraved razor.  
He held his breath, thought of his wife, mouthed his daughter's name, and plunged the blade into Turpin's chest.

The Judge's lips opened in silent horror. His hands flew about his head as his torso jerked, like a fish thrown onto land. Sweeney swallowed thickly, gripped Turpin's coat collar, and dragged the bloody mass of his body over to the trapdoor.

Without so much as a word, the barber stalked over to the lever and wrenched it down, his eyes filled to the brim with unshed tears as Turpin was swallowed up by the whole in the ground. There was a thumping noise. A strangled cry.

Sweeney collapsed to his knees, his body doused with the Judge's blood. Without thinking, he withdrew the gun and chucked it across the room, and struggled to lift his blood-saturated shirt over his head—like shedding a second skin.  
He bunched his shirt into his fist as moonlight infiltrated the window, and glowed against his bare skin, against the jagged scars that tore across his back.

His body slumped a bit, the shirt falling from his fingers. Blood ran in curved paths down his shoulders, past the knotted muscles of his arms. It dripped from his mane, it ran down his cheeks.

After a few minutes, Todd had gathered enough stamina to stand erect, but it took both Anthony and John's hands on his shoulders for him to walk to the barbering chair.

"Sit down, lad. By God, catch a breath," said John, patting his mate's shoulder.

Todd glance up at John, reading into the gratitude written across his friend's eyes.  
Sweeney Todd had saved him, from a fate that he knew all too well.  
Who knew a clean kill could save more than one soul?

What transpired after that was a blurred reality for Sweeney Todd. He discerned the sound of squeaky metal echoing from the bake-house, but he discounted it as nothing. Perhaps it was a vendor cart from outside, or the gate to a neighbor's house.

But moments later, when he heard a girl's sobs resonating from the trap-door, the measure of nothing had shifted into the weight of the world—bleak fatigue into a mad dash down the shop's stairs.

_"Johanna!"_

**The Inn**

Toby threw himself on the solitary bed with an Indian whoop. His body ricocheted from the springy surface, his limbs flinging out in mid-air and his locks fanning out from around his scrubby head. The air escaped from his lungs in a hiss as he shot back down, flopping onto his back. As his body jolted from the rebound, he entwined his fingers behind his head and released a set of breathless giggles.  
"That was bloody good, that was." He turned to Johanna, seated in the windowsill. "You ought to try it."

Johanna replied quickly, but barely grazed his form with her eyes before she was staring outside again. "That's silly, Toby."

He grinned, his teeth a tinted-yellow from the years of guzzling liquor. "You still ought to try, Johanna." He snagged a pillow, launched it into the air, and caught it. He continued this process for the next few minutes, as amused as a kitten with a ball of yarn.  
"If your father told you to do it, you'd be jumpin' on this 'ere bed before I could say _wahoo_!" Toby exclaimed.

Johanna glanced at him, her gaze longer than the time prior. "Father would never tell me to jump on a bed!" she exclaimed, her tone stressed with both amusement and disbelief.

"Well maybe he should!" Toby sprung up from the bed and shuffled over to the girl, extending his ragged paw towards her arm.

She shrieked as he wrenched her over to the mattress, and went red with laughter when he clambered onto it with a mighty, tenor bellow. "Come jump on the bed! Come up, is what I said! Oh," he knelt down towards her, "you're face's gone red." With her peeling laughter serving a his opportunity, he tugged her up to his side, adding "And do mind your head," in a softer tone.

Johanna cast a glance at Mrs. Lovett, intent on begging for assistance, but remained quiet once her eyes had fallen from the baker's face.

With one leg flung over the other, Mrs. Lovett fiddled with a loose stitch in her dress. Her eyes barely left the snag; her attention was so porous, thoughts seemed to slip as easily from her grip as water though her fingers. She floated between two realities; the children toying around across the room, and the man who had vanished into the night only minutes ago, away from his daughter, away from the only person who seemed to keep him anchored to sanity. How far could a man go without it, a man who whispered to blades and paced non-stop from night till morning?

She nibbled onto her lower-lip, ripping chunks of flesh between her teeth.

"Miss Nellie?" Johanna clambered from the bed, her ankles stinging from the impact. She retrieved her father's coat, flung over the bed's nightstand, and shouldered herself into it. Her narrow shoulders were lost in the sea of leather. "You seem troubled."

"I'm fine, love," the woman said, her voice groggy and the rims of her eyes throbbing. She held out her hand, beckoning the girl closer.

"Are you as nervous as I am?" asked Johanna, kneeling beside Nellie's armrest just as the barber had done for his daughter so many times prior. The notion seemed familiar to the girl, something that was an inevitable comfort—so why was it that Mrs. Lovett's eyes continued to dart from corner to corner, and her fingers fidgeted in her lap like insects?

"Nervous? I'm not nervous. Why'd yeh say somethin' as silly as that?" Lovett burdened her with a glare, then turned away to snap, "Toby, quit jumpin' on the bed, lad, before you make a hole in the ceiling with your head."

The boy silently plopped onto his backside, bouncing a bit before flipping onto his back and studying the opposite wall with a scowl. Grumbling under his breath, he yanked the blanket up to his chin, and buried himself beneath it. There was a moist plopping sound from beneath the mass of sheets, and then the gentle sluice of bottled liquid. The odor of alcohol filled the inn.

"Missus Lovett, please, talk to me. What's going on?"

The baker pushed herself into a pace across the room, chewing a sore hangnail on her thumb. "Nothin'," she said, her voice muffled by her finger. With an agitated sigh, the baker approached the window and drew the curtains together, blindfolding the night and concealing the illuminated room from wandering eyes.

"Missus Lovett, why are you closing the curtains?" Johanna shuffled over to the woman, but rejected her own question with a quick, squeaky gasp. "You saw him, too, didn't you?"

The look Nellie gave her was one of question.

"_Didn't_ you?"

"What the 'ell are yeh talkin—?

"I saw him pass by in his carriage," Johanna said, her eyes tenacious and her lips thinned into a grimace. "Turpin."

All but a fraction of the woman's attention turned toward Johanna. The forsaken fraction rested on Toby, and keeping her voice low so that he would not pick up on their conversation.  
"Just a coincidence, darlin', I'm sure. Come, sit yeh down, sweetheart." Her smile grew with each word; her words were so sweet, Johanna's nose wrinkled in distaste—honey practically dripped from each syllable.

Johanna evaded the woman's hands. "You're hiding something from me."

"I ain't!"

"You are!" Johanna's voice reached its peak, cracking with tension. "Why was Turpin riding in his carriage, at nighttime, in the very direction my father just went in? Lord Turpin never travels at night! And father promised he would _never_ leave me alone again!"  
The sleeves of her coat flapped like bat wings as she threw her hands out, waiting for the truth to fall into her grasp.

"Love, calm down!" Nellie cried, gripping the girl's hands into her own. "You're father'll be coming back in no time—I promise it!"

"Don't you say that, Missus Lovett!" Johanna shoved the woman aside. She gripped handfuls of her own hair and began yanking out blonde chunks. They scattered in her wake, a golden trail on the floor. "Don't you _ever_ promise me somthin' you're not sure of—_Ever_!" She collapsed onto the foot of the bed, wailing while Toby poked his head out from beneath his hiding spot. "Oh, God, oh, God—father's going to _kill_ him!" Her tiny hands balled against her skull, rubbing her eyes sore as if to ward off the thought.

Mrs. Lovett chose silence as an answer, and was severed by the double-ended sword that silence was. If she had said 'yes', Johanna would have fled. 'No', and Johanna would have accused her of lying, yet again. And silence, a silence filled with averted eyes and wringing hands, always exposed the truth.

Johanna shrieked in horror, pointing at the woman as if she were directing her attention towards the guilt on the woman's gaze.

The girl's eyes were strong, unwavering.  
Defiant.

As instantaneous as a bolt of lightning, Johanna flew to her feet, and tore through the inn's doorway.

Mrs. Lovett shrieked from behind her, her voice carrying well through the barren streets. Seconds later, Toby's cries joined the baker's.

Their voices were soon swallowed up by the thick, icy darkness.

Johanna winded down the sea-moist streets like a cyclone, patches of ice, which were crusted into the street grooves and walkways, slowing her stride. But her horrible, wild terror hastened it.

The bitter cold stung her skin like needle-pricks. Her burning gasps puffed from her mouth like smoke. The world she fled was a whirlwind of color, of shapeless distortions—the apothecary was smudge of black, the streetlamps, a glint of orange. Her shoes slammed against the pavement, and yet the sound they released was that of delicate _taps._

The crowded London was forsaken of her nightly strollers. It seemed like the world had gone to sleep, drifting into pleasant dreams as she ran through this nightmare—one she could not wake from.

Her leg jarred against the sidewalk after she slipped on a frozen stream of sewage. Releasing a squeal, she stuck her finger against the gash running down from her knee to her shin, and wiped the warm river of blood against her hands for warmth.

She stood, grimacing in frustration as her leg throbbed, and continued down to Fleet Street; each block, each street, and each corner locked in her memory. Despite her father's command that she remain in the inn, she had taken special notice towards the path that they had taken.  
But how could she have known her precautions would have been needed? How could she have prepared herself for _this_?

She arrived at house number _186_ earlier than she had imagined. Her father's window was dimly lit with candles, though her viewpoint allowed only a fleeting glimpse of a head, downy blond and lank—_Anthony,_ she thought.

But her father remained unseen, and a sudden guilt began to bud. What if she had jumped to conclusions, and the Judge had a late-night appointment with a client? What if her father had really wanted some time away from her, just a single night, and she had over-reacted?

Johanna directed her path towards the barber-shop stairs, then thought better of it_. If her father knew she had disobeyed his orders_—Johanna shivered at the thought, then abandoned it.

She wandered to the side of the house and glimpsed down at her draggled body, at a loss. Her fingers were a cherry red, her leg burned and gushed with fluid.

Johanna's thoughts ran in a circle. She shoved her hands beneath her folded arms, glanced at the pie-shop, and limped towards it. Its windows were opaque, there was not a trace of light inside, and if the door was locked, she would have no choice but to summon her father.

Again, she examined herself. Her leg was spewing more blood, stinging with pain.  
The thought of returning to Mrs. Lovett made her groan, considering the distance she would have to cover on a wounded leg. Perhaps if Mrs. Lovett's shop door was opened, she could swab the cut with Toby's gin, and bandage it with a cloth napkin…  
Yes, her father would be angry when he found her, that was inevitable, but prolonging the period that he was _not_ angry remained the foremost priority.

Johanna palmed the doorknob, drew in a breath, and turned it. The door swung open, its bells whispering with jingles. She stepped inside and inhaled the thin, powdery air.

She could have sighed in relief, could have dug through a drawer to nurse her wound and collapsed into a booth, maybe even taken a few healthy swigs of gin...

But a sound distracted her; a heavy thump that seemed to sound from bellow her feet.

Clutching the collar of her father's over-sized jacket, she assessed the empty shop. Her wired senses besieged her line of thought. With wandering steps, she meandered around the room, poking her head under tables, turning corners.

She came to the wooden set of doors running parallel to the floor—the bake-house entrance. An involuntary shiver thumbed her spine as she slid the two slabs open, revealing the amorphous set of stairs that led to nowhere, the concrete coated in a thick slime, the quiet moans of a male echoing from the bottom; the abyss.

Her first step was unstable; she nearly slipped on a glop of fluid. With her hands laid flat against the walls, she pulled through the narrow passage, the temperature dipping below freezing as she descended.

It was frightening; the resemblance this place had to the asylum. She coughed down a river of sickness and approached the final door.

She struggled with the bone-thick latch; the door needed a nudge before it opened as the rusty hinges grinded up against the rims. A terrible odor wafted past her in a breeze, sweeping her unkempt strands from her shoulders.  
And with no one there to protect her, with no aegis whatsoever, she proceeded into the bake-house.

Somewhere in the outside world, she lost every last ounce of her perspicacity—so the bleeding lump crumpled across the floor was simply mistaken for animal carrion. It explained the stench, it explained the blood that pooled from its form, but it did not explain the agonized groans that fled its lips.

Her heart jumped, then plummeted, and then flurried like the wings of a small bird. She shifted a foot back, but her retreat faltered, and her back ended up slamming against the closest wall. The groaning heap shifted, and from the stump of its torso—that gushed blood like a pump—a face turned towards her.

Her initial instinct, to cry and shout and flee, was ephemeral—she began to giggle.

"Hello, my lord. How good it is to see you again." There was a jump in her step as she advanced on him, perching herself above his huddled form like some sort of God—the God of war. The God of victory.

Again, she begin to laugh, but kept her voice stifled with the coat's sleeve. "My, my," she glimpsed at his face, swollen as a tomato, "it seems you've some enemies, my lord."

His response was gurgled, blood and frothy saliva dribbled down his chin. He hacked up a pint of blood—she guessed—and wiped his mouth clean with a handful of his robes. A gleam of silver exuded from his chest, and as he struggled to sit up, its full length glinted amongst the maroon floor, his ink-black chest, and the warm light cast from the flaming furnace.  
A razor; he had been stabbed.

And what was worse—her knees shook; the load of her body causing them to buckle—he had been stabbed in the bake-house of her _father's_ home, with one of her _father's_ prized razors.

"Please, child," the Judge moaned, the sound so raw and desperate to her young ears.

Johanna's instincts spiraled out of control. She fumbled on the floor, using the back wall as support for her limp body. The sobs that she had kept so well suppressed were beginning to seep through the tiny crack of her lips.

Turpin brought a finger to his mouth. "Shhh, darling, we don't want anyone to hear us." His mouth twisted into what he thought was an amiable smile, one of comfort and stability. "Come, help me up, child."

The girl's head flew into a mad shake. "No, no, I can't—"

He shushed her again. "Please, my sweet, be quiet. Help your master—I need you."

Though her mind waged war, and screamed for her to be still if not turn and run to her father, she clambered forward on all-fours, gouging a deeper wound into her leg, and reached a blind hand towards him. When her hand made contact with the blood-soaked material of his shirt, the cries thrashed inside of her mouth. She squeezed her lips together until the skin around them faded to white.

"Don't cry, beloved, just help me stand." His voice seemed to relax a little, for she was doing as he wished, but the sweetness of his words held fast. He spoke to her in a way she remembered, when she was but a child and he would prop her into his lap, stroking her banana-curls. So soft and delicate, cooing her and loving her and…

…and mocking her.

This was _his_ voice—the same one he used when she was crumpled on the floor, blood seeping through her skirts.

And there it was—the truth. This man, with a blade lodged in his torso, had held her down and raped her, as he had done to her mother.

"No." Her fingers retracted from his shirt, singed as if by fire. "I want to see you on the floor this time, dying." No matter how many times she had fantasized about this moment, no matter how much she craved to be the one looking down with a sneer, the vindictive measure of her words conflicted with every fiber of her being.  
No one deserved to die; and especially not like this.

The Judge gaped at her, his surprise evident. "Johanna, whatever has occurred in the past is exactly that—the past. We must lay the foundations for a future, now." He slid his hand across the icy floor, reaching for her. "_Our_ future."

Her anger faltered, her voice cracked with torment. "Why'd you hurt me, sir?"

The man's voice was gentle again, but there was not a trace of authenticity in his eyes, nor even a smile to ensure it. "Because I love you."

A current of steam singed her stomach; she crouched onto the floor, leaned forward, whispering, "Did you love my mother, too? Was that the reason you killed her?"

Turpin's eyes shot up to the trap-door nailed shut into the ceiling. "Shh, Johanna. I didn't kill your mother—I wouldn't—"

"Then what _did_ you to her, _my lord_?" Too weary to stand, she pulled her body forward, her lame leg dragging along. "Tell me exactly"—she was overwhelmed by a dull headache—"what you did to my mother."

The Judge groped for a reason, for the perfect words he always kept locked in his memory, but they evaded his grasp. He tried to speak for the sake of silencing her, and even that failed. His voice was a scratchy breath, a dying animal.

"Go on," she swept her sleeve across her eye-lids, her skin a burning scarlet, "tell me everything!" Her voice was strained, too strained; her vocal cords were tangled knots.

His voice slowly returned to him. "Silence yourself," he mumbled. His sitting position slumped forward, chin to chest.

"Tell the truth, quick, before…before my father comes down here and—and—cuts you into pieces! Yes, he's going to cut you into tiny pieces—and—and I'm going to watch, I swear I will—"

Turpin was passive to her remarks. There was no audible response other than the splatter of blood as he shifted the razor's handle, giving it a faint tug in an attempt to dislodge it. Only then did he emit a sound—a hiss of pain. His hands shot away from the weapon, then curled at his sides.

"Answer me," she ordered, arching forward so that she loomed over his hunched figure.

A set of black eyes flickered up to hers, black eyes that drowned in pain. His pupils had dilated in the dark, but pulsed wildly like the two were a set of inky, black hearts.

"Don't look at me like that—Don't." Her fist closed around the razor's handle, and she gave it a brutal wrenched it to the side, though it barely moved. Solid bone blocked the razor's path, the flesh kept it secured deep in his chest.

His upper-body flew back, slammed into the brick floor. His sealed lips muffled the cries, but his Adam's- apple shivered as he screamed into his own mouth.

Johanna also fell back, but her hands propped out behind her and kept her upright. She did a backwards crawl, until she was pushed up against the wall again, breathing as heavy as he.

"I'm sorry—" she blurted, and then erupted into sobs.

Curling into a ball, the judge somehow managed to roll closer to her, but his body loosened its coil, and he lay flat on his spine. Liquid pooled in the back of his throat, overflowing from the sides of his mouth in rivers of red.

His head twitched to the side, his puffy eyes fastened on her. "Johanna," he gurgled, his hand straining for hers. His labored breaths drew shorter—barely a huff; lazy gasps.

Johanna's head of blonde shook, her cries were peeling, but she hauled herself towards him, as the world weighed her body down.

Their hands met—slick with blood, cold.

Their eyes met—but hers were no longer blue, he noticed.

He was staring into _Lucy Barker's_ eyes.

And it was the realization that stifled his faint heart.

Judge Turpin's mouth hung open, his own eyes pushed to the back of his skull. What was once hand in Johanna's grip was now a icy slab of flesh.

And though he was dead, though she hated him more than her child's mind could bear, she crawled onto his lifeless chest, and held onto her guardian as if to will him back to life.

It was not until her father's voice was behind her, and her father's arms were enveloping her in a fierce hold, that she released her grip.

**Unfortunately for me, there's only one more chapter left to write. Please stick around for the conclusion—it saddens that I have to end it, but all good things must come to an end. I know I had a grand time writing; I can only hope you all had a grand time reading it. **

**Drop me a review, please, and let me know if I pulled off this chapter.**

**Thank you all. **


	50. Chapter 50

**My absence…is inexcusable. I can only give you reasons for it, some of which are not so pleasant. **

**But, instead of going into sad and woe-is-me detail, I'll leave you all with this: I had been undergoing a bit of a depression, due to certain circumstances in my life. As a result, my desire to write was slowly abandoned. But I could never completely forsake it.**

**The absence of writing only made things worse.**

**And now I'm back, and I feel alive—writing for me, writing to please. **

**Since I feel that you guys deserve a little bit more than an apology and one last chapter…I'll be writing a Chapter 51 to thank you all for your patience and support, as well as to compensate any literary skill this chapter may lack due to my time off.**

**You guys may not know it, but your reviews and support have pulled me from a very dark place, and brought me some light, hand-delivered.**

**From the beginning to end—thank you!**

**Chapter 50**

He dragged her away from the Judge's corpse, her feet trailing out from beneath her, as she clung to his arms. Her nails were imbedded in his flesh, blood dotted around the crescent-shaped imprints.

"Johanna"—he took note of the gash in her leg, her dress blotched with the blackness of dried blood—"_God dammit_."

Her fists, shaking with pressure, were clenched against the nape of his bear neck. The blood caking his body—Turpin's blood— smeared his daughter's pale cheeks, and clumped in her matted hair—coating her, _tainting_ her. He looked down upon her, freed one hand, and gave a futile attempt in wiping away the crimson beneath her eye with his thumb. The pad of his finger only smeared the gore, until the flesh beneath her eye appeared to be a deep, red bruise.

Johanna shifted herself away from Todd's arms to grant her upper-body a fraction of motion, to center her gaze on Turpin, her eyes a glassy white. Her neck, creased from the strain of keeping it turned towards the Judge, ached and burned. Her body remained firm against Sweeney's, his sweat icy, and his face raging with anger—and even as his eyes drowned in fire, concern floated to the surface as he glimpsed at his daughter.

Johanna uttered something short of a scream—and more so a squawk—through trembling lips as her body fell into tremors, as her father attempted to still her with the force of his arms roping her back into him. When he gripped her chin, forcing her to look back at him, and arched his neck so that their brows touched, she finally ceased her fit. Only soft cries, sometimes fragmented words, could be discerned through her hastened breaths.

"What in the bloody 'ell"—Mrs. Lovett burst through the bake-house doorway, her keen glare taking in the scattered occupants. Toby, who had outrun the baker's frail legs in the chase to reclaim Johanna, had shoved his spine flat against the brick wall, gawking at Mrs. Lovett after her abrupt entry. John had been staring at the father and daughter as they remained in their slumped embrace, but the large ex-con lifted his head towards the baker as her heels clicked against the stone floor, and he twisted his lips into a weak smile.

Johanna had huddled her coiled figure into the shell of her father's body. Her form was almost hidden against him, swallowed whole by his arms and tilted head, but her sobs and sputtered words emanated from the spot, and easily marked her presence.

Mrs. Lovett fell into place, next to John, pulling Toby from the wall. She smoothed the boy's wind-tousled hair, guiding his cheek against her stomach. His hands locked behind her waist as his nostrils filled with her scent—pie dough and the salty mist of the Channel. Toby could not see, with his eyes tucked against Lovett's lacy dress, how the woman's eyes had widened, barely blinking, and almost shining with relief as she stared at the Judge's corpse. Her grip around the boy's shoulders was strong; the lad made no movement against her.

John was the first to break the group's vigil. He began a quick approach toward his friend, the heel of his boots clapping against the moist stone, and the proceeding echo absorbed by the thick, wet air.

"'ere mate," John mumbled, pausing to unbutton his coat. The shirt he wore was thin with stretched hems, glued to his skin with sweat. With another set of steps, though these were slow and cautioned as he drew closer, John approached the barber's front, with his coat brandished before him like a peace-offering. "Put this on."

With a glance at his own bear chest, Sweeney recollected how he had torn his blood-soaked shirt from his body, minutes prior to then. He murmured, "Just throw it on," regarding John's jacket with a frown, like wearing it was some sort of burden.  
But it was the task of donning it that was the burden. There would be no sense in even _trying_ to peel Johanna away for a second, let alone for the amount of time it would take to pull on a coat. She would have a fit—his frown grew at the thought.

John swallowed a quick breath of air and circled the slumped pair, until he faced his mate's back. It was not a surprise to him, the thick, white lines that rose above the barber's flesh. Nor were the jagged, pink strokes that were scattered around his ribcage, his lower-back, and the nape of his neck. Patches of discolored flesh were clumped on his shoulder blades. The row of rounded bone that lined Todd's back had been whipped out of alignment, and had healed in a crooked, misshapen pattern. There were the remnants of disjointed ribs prodding from beneath his skin, shaped like the tips of pyramids.

Johanna had felt the coarse bumps strewn across her father's shoulders as she clung to him. And as she battled another tirade of tears, she ran her fingers along his uneven scars, and kissed the bone of his shoulder, where calloused skin had clumped over old injury.

While John hid Sweeney's wounds and distortions with his coat, his memory triggered and flooded, like a dam collapsing under a flood of water. He remembered Barker being beaten into the dirt of the plantations with a rifle's butt as he gripped the guard's boots; the numerous times he was strapped to the poles and whipped with leather claws, and held to the floor as the guards stomped on his spine, on the area over his kidneys, yanking his arms backward until they both gave that empty _popping_ sound.  
But that had been all John had seen; all he could remember. The barber's mutilated back had revealed so much more.

After this, John receded to the Judge's body, and pretended to hold a solid interest in the bleeding mass.

Still, Sweeney's attention had never diverted from his daughter. "Why did yeh come back, love?" he sighed. The breath of his words brushed against her hairline. "Huh?" he insisted.  
Her failure to respond made his arms twitch.  
A pinch grew in his chest.

He should not have questioned her return—he did not have to. The answer was written everywhere, like an imprint on her actions: She had felt he was in danger. So she had rushed home to aid him.  
Sweeney could only lay the blame on the bond—_their_ bond. The line that kept their minds tethered to sanity, to safety, to connection. The bond that had been so terribly tight and strained, it could bring him to his knees, and rip his soul in two when they were separated. And yet, the damned thing was what kept him alive while in her presence.

Her voice, though it was pressed against his clothed shoulder, produced something credible—an apology.

"I'm sorry," Johanna said. Her voice was a mere whistle of air; her chest heaved with bated breath.

He could not suppress a soft chuckle, one that rested at his own expense. "Don't be, Johanna. I'm a damned idiot." Craning his neck, he met her irritated, red eyes. Beads of moisture were tangled in her eyelashes.

"You're not," she denied in a whisper. Her hollow tone, thin and fragile, was chipping away, and cries were creeping up her throat. "Y-y-y-your m-my angel, 'member?"

Her ribs throbbed as he doubled his arms around her waist, his voice submerged in silence. She rested her brow against the sharp accent of his jawbone, clasping her hands behind his neck. Silent tears marked her cheeks.

Sweeney Todd, again, released a sigh. There was an emotion, now, that eased his heart to a normal tempo, and soothed his wiry nerves into equilibrium. It was contentment; no more empty, soulless voids. Like a piece to the puzzle, the gap that had dug into his mind had been filled with the satisfaction he sought—to plunge his blade into Turpin flesh, to see the bastard's mouth leak with blood, but the greatest contentment lay with his daughter—she would remain with her _rightful_ guardian.  
His objectives were complete; the Judge was dead; the years of meticulous schemes, the lies—_over._  
And this sudden feeling of wholeness was almost too good for his stomach to bear. He swallowed down his nausea, and glimpsed down at Johanna; the other fragment of his being that had been restored. This was for her—not revenge, but protection.  
He had to remind himself of that.

The stench of carrion flesh was beginning to drive into his nostrils, and it surprised him how much the smell sickened him. But how ideal it was for him to remain there, cradling his child, gazing down at his enemy's corpse…

"Johanna." Anthony's voice was like a blunt knife, cutting painfully through the barber's thoughts. Todd glared at the boy, whose feet were facing the backhouse doorway as if he wished to depart, but his upper-body had pivoted to face the pair.

The girl sniffled, and pulled back from her father's chest. To her surprise, his firm grip had loosened for her mobility. Father and daughter wore almost identical expressions—confusion, written in the depression of their brows; an odd sense of calm that kept their words clear, though their eyes were shadowed and restless.

"He won't ever hurt you again," the sailor said, his young face scribbled with thought.

Johanna sniffed again, turning back to her father. She brushed his collar with her finger, lost in thought. "Yes, Anthony," she recited, her thoughts obviously elsewhere.

"Tell me that you believe it," Anthony said, his feet picking a rhythm as he advanced upon her.

Todd's glare was matched with a low, throaty growl. His anger seared, until it poisoned his body with aggression. He stood, bringing Johanna with him, and pushed himself in front of her, his body barring a path between the two teens. His fury burned, not because of the boy's choice to comfort Johanna, but because he was holding his hand out to her, willing her to leave.

The barber's arms prickled with shivers as his daughter slipped a hand onto his arm. She maneuvered her way past her father's blockade, and positioned herself against Sweeney's chest, facing Anthony. The look that crossed her face was ambiguous—too torn to discern a single emotion. Grief and wonder glided across her eyes, bereavement and joy in her words. "I believe it," she said.

Anthony paused, and selected the opportune position on his knees, kneeling like a knight before his lady, staring up into her face. His face was twisted also, but like picking glass from flesh, Todd detected the tears streaking the sailor's pale cheeks.

A sudden awareness pierced Todd's skull, and it delivered pain beyond measure. He glanced around, and finally took notice of a weapon lodged in the dead man's chest, the heat of a furnace he and his partner had used to cook and burn their murder victims, and how horrifying it was to see blood slicked across his Johanna's cheek and onto her innocent, child's hands. He broke the contact between him and his daughter by taking a swift step back.  
With erratic fingers, he fastened the buttons of John's jacket up to his neck, his eyes bulging from his skull as he gawked at Johanna's stained skin. His icy chest was soon concealed in the flappy, brown leather.

Seeking the barber's eyes in a quick glance, Anthony held his hand out for Johanna to grasp. She did so, webbing her fingers with his.

"Turpin will _never_ hurt you again, Johanna." With his free hand, Anthony rose, and gripped her quivering chin. His words deviated from a soft volume, but rose with strength. "You are free."

She could barely meet the boy's gaze, let alone speak to him.  
To think, she had used this sweet boy as a ploy for escape, and abandoned him the moment her skin touched the stone of London street. She had ensnared him with weak, empty promises of love and a future, and disregarded those words when she received what she wanted—her father. All those words, those sweet promises of a future together; rubbish.

Her heart shuddered as she raised a free hand to the sailor's shoulder, letting it remain there. Only when she whispered an apology did she dare look into his eyes. After that, it was back to staring at the floor, as if a trace of comfort could be gathered from the cold cobblestones.

The barber observed this, but sustained a distance from the two of them. Though he was silent, no one seemed to notice how his body had gone unnaturally still. Unbeknownst to anyone, Todd's mind had begun a painful shift in perspective; his parochial view of the world was being impaled. Not everyone deserved death, and the city's fire that fed the madness of London was beginning to slumber.

The change was cataclysmic, to the point where the man's head began to blister. Todd bit into his lips, his rampage of thought like wood to the wildfire.

Johanna was ogling at Sweeney, a squeak of concern produced from her small voice. "Father?"

Sweeney disregarded his daughter's concern. He could not bar the sailor from Johanna because he had been _right_. This child—this life—she who kept his soul suspended, and injected meaning into his life, was _free_.

Todd's sanguine thought passed. Johanna may have been free—free of the Judge, at least. There remained, still, those toxic strings connecting her to a life of hardship, confusion, anger—and he was the most taut, venomous string binding her to it. Her own father, her blood, was most likely the worst thing for her.

And yet, she lived only for him!

Todd's voice was strangled. "Take her," he meant to say, but the sound he released was non-committal.

"Papa, you must stop that!" Johanna shifted, ready to approach him, but Anthony's arm hooked under her arm, around her waist, keeping her fastened to his side. He had seen Todd trapped in one of his rages, and—_God almighty_— the man was capable of anything during such a tirade; even harming his daughter.  
Though Johanna protested Anthony's precaution, the boy remained firm.

Todd continued to ponder, the empty intervals of his thoughts filled with glances at Johanna.  
She reached for her father, those blue eyes he so adored now clouded with terror. Her lip twitched, and she leaned away from the sailor, her energy renewed with the growing violence of her protests. She gripped Anthony's hand, prying each individual finger from her arm. "Let go of me, Anthony!" she cried as he renewed his grip with another hand.

Todd came up to the sailor's side, speaking softly, like calming a frightened animal. "Johanna, you must go with him." He allowed himself to smile softly, though the result was not as desired. His lips wore a grimace, but the swift jerk of his head towards the door reaffirmed his purpose—_Go._

Still, the hesitation bound her to the spot. "You…you come with me," she sniffed, her hand straining forward. Sweeney became immobile once her fingertips grazed his chest.

"No, my love," he shook his head, whispering. "Not this time."

"Father, _please,_ come here_, now_." Her words were built on nothing other than cries; no strength, no will. Her energy was depleting from this constant battle—_why did she always have to fight for her father?_

But the barber's stone-will subsided to her plea. He walked forward and gripped her shoulders, ignoring the hand she had offered.

Anthony abandoned his grasp on the girl, receded to the judge's body, and molded a frown onto his lips. Inside, his heart throbbed when the two began to speak. The love that poured from the girl's face when she was with her father—Anthony sighed, his thoughts lost in wonder. When would that fervent, desperate affection ever be directed towards him?

"Go with the boy," Mr. Todd said to his daughter. "I 'ave to take care of him," Todd flicked his eyes towards the corpse.

Johanna's voice was soft and wearisome.

"But you'll come back to me?" she asked, pain-creases imbedded in her brow.

"Johanna—"

Sudden energy boiled beneath her skin. "I'll not let have it any other way, dammit!" she shrieked, hurling herself against his chest.

His brow rose, and despite the gruff quality of his admonishment, there was a trace of amusement in his voice. "Language…"

Rather than battle his reprisal, all traces of anger drained from her expression as she drew away from his chest. She fought a tiny sob and placed a palm on his cheek. "_You_ are my father."

His own uncertainty left him speechless_._

"This man…_here_," she brushed her fingers over his breast and circled the area where his irregular pulse thumped through the jacket, "is Benjamin Barker. And he is the _only_ father I'll ever love."

He chose to speak then, his words brutal; a croak of sound. "He's dead, Johanna. _Dead_."

"No, he isn't, papa._ I_ wouldn't be alive if he was."

Todd took in a breath, as if he was to reply. But he was speechless, again.

Their hands met in a soft, secure grasp. Sweeney glimpsed down at her fingers, how they supported his limp arms, and drew him back to her world—the_ real_ world.

A half hour had come to pass. Anthony and Johanna were long gone, up to the barbershop, where Anthony was instructed to dress Johanna's leg wound. Now it was Toby's turn to depart, after he had summoned enough sense to push his way to the exit. Mrs. Lovett followed, reaching forward to cup his shoulder as he hovered in the doorway. The boy's hair swayed as he glimpsed between Mr. Todd, the corpse that streamed blood, and the dark, amorphous stairwell.

Somewhere, as he processed his own unbalanced thoughts, Todd detected an upset in the young lad's eyes—an upset that alerted the barber, but had not the strength to uproot him from the spot. Sweeney's head was keeling with his own ill-ease, though he was certain sympathy for the child had managed to invade his sub-conscious. Yet again.

He cursed beneath his breath, as he broke his own rigidity to approach the lad.

"Boy," he began. The worst thing he could associate with his comment was the insight of how stupid it was—_what was he going to do? Threaten the child into silence over the murder of a government official?_ _Yes, that would work out perfectly well!_

"Mr. Todd," the child raised his hand, holding it before his face to indicate a wish to speak, rather than self-defense. "I ain't sayin' this because I'm scared or dull or anythin' like that. I might not know a hell of a lot, but I know one thing—and I'll tell anyone who asks." He took a man-sized step away from Mrs. Lovett, and gazed at the barber, dead on. "Judge Turpin never came 'ere."

Again, Todd pondered over what to say. _Thank you?_

To his horror, his thought line had traveled past his lips. "Thank you?"

Toby's lip raised in a half-smile. His small stature seemed to perk up, his eyes began to gleam.

Mrs. Lovett rubbed his back, drawing him to her side. "I'd say it's far past your bedtime, li'l man," she mumbled, but her voice was far from discontent.

And soon, they had retreated up the stairs, too.

John's speech reminded the barber of his presence.  
"Looks like they left the body-dumpin' to the ex-cons, eh?" The man piped up, breaking his solemn watch over the stiff carcass. "It's good to know we keep the company o' intelligent people." His large, toothy grin seemed to outweigh his face.

Todd snorted. "If it'd had been you, you would 'ave had the children do it," he mumbled, closing in on the body. His eyes ran over his razor, jutting out from Turpin's shirt, and the barber knelt down so than his knee rested on the Judge's block of a shoulder. With his knee pinning Turpin to the floor, the barber yanked his weapon from the bone it was encased in. The blade sliced through the Judge's flesh, the sound like a metal hiss. Once freed, Todd inspected his razor, and with a nonchalant grunt, pocketed it in his holster. Dried blood crumbled from his fingers.

With a roll of his eyes, John lowered himself into a squat over the body. "You mean the sailor and that Toby lad? Cleanin' up this bloody mess?"" He glanced at his partner, and caught notice of the man's smirk.  
"Not for nothin, Ben, but I think we've traumatized them two enough as it is." The serious look in his eye was unbefitting. "They ain't really kids anymore."

John tersely stood, stepped over the immense torso that blocked his path, and hoisted the Judge's legs into the air by clutching his heels. John soon found the man's boots slipping off as he attempted to pull the Judge by his feet, and with a growl, he yanked the shoes off and threw them into the furnace fire. This time, he gripped the Judge's bear ankles, and attempted to drag the body towards the exit. He managed only a few inches on his own before throwing Turpin's legs to the ground, sending a wad of spit onto the bloodied head.

Todd, severing his own silence, muttered, "Just burn it."

"Naw, Barker, that's too modest." John prodded both hands upon his hips, shaking his head as he scoffed at the Judge's beak-like nose, dripping with beads of snot. Like a child, John's voice held a note of imploration. "Let's do as we said—Paint the Thames red!"

"You mean dump it in the river?"

"No, I intend on inviting him to dinner," John spat, busying himself with another heave of the body towards the door, clutching at the dead legs with a vice-like grip. Still, his grip fumbled, and Turpin's legs slapped against the floor.

"Come on, Ben, help me with this'n." With his hands dragging the Judge now by his listless wrists, John's shoulder squared from the effort, a fine sweat broke across his skin. "The bugger may have been old, but _Jaysus Christ_, he weighs more than me wife."

Sweeney stormed forward, and with a burst of aggravation, began to drag the Judge towards the door by his ankles, with more success than John's previous attempts. The dead man's head bopped against the cobbled floor, and smacked against the large, metal doorway.

John snickered, "You're having too much fun with this, Ben," and rushed forward to assist his friend.

They had the body wrapped in Lovett's old bed-sheets—the ones that were moth-eaten, stained to a pus-color, and littered with lint-balls. Then, with the assistance of the baker, the ex-cons were given a wheelbarrow—frequently used to cart raw meat from vendor stalls to her furnace—in which they placed the wrapped corpse.

After they brought the body outside, the men carted their victim into the outside dining section of Mrs. Lovett's Meat Pie Emporium, where they stuffed handfuls of dirt from her wilting flowerbeds into the pushcart to conceal the corpse. Once they were through, their hands were caked with filth, and granules of pebbles and dirt had burrowed beneath their nails.

London's streets were not vacant, but they were by no means crowded at this hour. From what Sweeney gathered, the position of the moon and the lack of human activity indicated it was at least three in the morning.

John and Sweeney had drawn their coat collars up to their chins, and had both donned hats which Mrs. Lovett had provided for them. (She neglected to mention they had belonged to her late husband, Albert, but thought it pointless in mentioning the fact anyway.) The rims of the headwear sunk pas their brows—for their previous owner was obviously a large gentleman—and barely cut across their eyes. It served well in masking their faces, especially in the ill-lit roads.

John kept his hunting knife unsheathed, and tucked away into a sewn-in pocket; Sweeney had his razor stashed in its holster. Anthony's pistol was nestled beside Turpin's body in the wheelbarrow, covered by only a thin layer of soil.

Well-concealed and equipped, the two set off to the piers, carting their prize through the vacant backstreets and passageways of London. Of course, there would be a ruffian or two that would spare them a fleeting frown, or a bawdy whore who would offer the two of them a discount before having a shot at her flask, and falling into an alley with a snickering customer.

The only Constable that spotted the pair had been pressed to the wall of an abandoned pub, with a girl settled on her knees before him, undoing the straps of his belt.  
"Evenin', gents," he slurred, tapping his fingers on the tip of his uniform headgear. He glanced down as the girl struggled with his bronze buckle. "To the deuce with it!" he roared, wrenching it off himself.

After that particular disturbance, the barber and his partner went undisturbed by any nightly vagabonds.  
There was something about two men with heavy coats, large hats, and a large wheelbarrow with unknown cargo that remained unsettling to a passerby.

They reached the docks within an hour, the weight of the body tacking on an extra twenty minutes at least. The streetlamps were brighter here, and their glow bounced off of the Channel's glass-smooth surface. John advised they travel down the side of the dock, until they reached the more distanced ports typically used for smaller ships, fewer passengers, and little cargo. As they drew further from the heart of London city, the orange shine of street lanterns turned into a soft, white glow—into moonlight.

There lay small docks, where merchant boats were tethered to the wooden planks. Though the body may never have been found in such an obscure area, the risk of recognition was far too dangerous with the streetlamps and large ports hovering in the near distance. And the piers extended only a few yards or so, before a large state building sealed off their path, and ended the journey along the Channel. It was either here or nowhere.

John scanned the water from the safety of the pier's edge, nodding to himself.

"Yes, 'ere will 'ave to do. With any luck," he briefly noted a bridge than hung miles above their heads, extending from the great stone city like an iron promontory, "some bloke up there will spot the floater." His voice was growing softer, "or someone strollin' by o'er 'ere..."

Sweeney kept his head bent, but glanced up only to take note of his surroundings. No one, be it someone on the bridge, or someone passing by the dank, barren pier would see the Judge's body.

"It won't matter," Todd mumbled, the heel of his boot dragging along moist gravel as he joined John by his side. "Turpin was chokin' after we 'ad at 'im…on blood…He didn't have any air left—he won't float."

John gave an aggravated sigh, but the sound his mighty lungs expelled was more of a growl. Snow drifted down, and dotted the water, its surface blooming with ripples.

A slap of wind tore over the Channel, and ripped the smooth waves into choppy ringlets.

A grin crawled onto John's lips, his features pale and dim in the moon's rays. "A strong wind," he remarked, turning to Sweeney, "makes a strong current." The mischief in his eyes, tucked beneath the hat, gleamed like fire—there it was again, that uncanny resemblance to a child in the eyes of a middle-aged ex-con. Sweeney had to keep from rolling his eyes.

They started with recovering the mummified body from the cart of dirt. Todd bent over the carcass, and began unwinding the sheet from the bloody flesh, first exposing Turpin's feet, then his knees, his torso, and finally his head—which rested askew on his large shoulders. White bone peeked from beneath the skin of his collar-bone, like a large, crooked finger poking through the man's shirt-collar.  
_Must have happened when he fell through the trap-door,_ Sweeney thought, though he was thoroughly surprised he had overlooked it.

John drew himself into a crouch. His grimace was hidden behind the leather of his jacket as the pain in his knees dug through the core of his body.  
"Alright, Ben; roll the barrow here, and dump it—I'll make sure the bugger don't make a sound."

Sweeney gripped the wooden handles, and wheeled the cart to the edge. The tip of the pushcart hung over the water, dipping closer and closer to the restless waves. John held his hands beneath the metal rim, creating a net with his arms in which he cradled the body as it slipped from its confines.

"_Jaysus_," John huffed as he dipped the Judge's legs into the water. The blackness began to swallow the corpse whole, devouring his knees, his waist, then lapping past his chest.

John held the Judge beneath his arms, so that the head of thick, grey hair remained above the water. The waves sluiced around his neck, and frothed against the spikes of stubble upon his chin. His mouth, dumb and open, filled with brackish water as he bobbed over and under the waves.

"Ben, take a good look," John said. "I want yeh to make your peace. Put them demons to rest."

"Just let the fucker sink—"

"I will, Ben, but I'm goin' to bloody well wait for yeh. Now hurry it up and get your closure—this bugger isn't goin' to stay afloat for long."

Todd nodded, and then fell into a moment of silence. As much as he wanted to, as good as it would have been to purge himself of such hatred then and there, he could not. The moment was too forced, and his mind was at war with the reality of the Judge being dead to begin with. Fifteen years of wishing it and now it seemed all-together impossible. It was like trying to summon sleep as he lay in a prison cot, or willingly pushing the nightmares from his brain for a moment of peace. It could not be done.  
Sweeney took a small step back. "Let 'im go."

"Brilliant, Ben. Now gimme a moment, too. Mr. Judge Turpin—" For a moment, John appeared sincere. There was a hesitance in his voice. His face began a transformation of pain written in his brow. The amiable glow in his eyes fell into something forsworn. A nostalgia that Sweeney had never before seen in his friend seemed to dampen John's face with a frown.  
"Kiss my rotten cooler!" He brayed with laughter, abandoned his arms from the Judge's body, and extended his middle finger towards the sinking heap.

The body disappeared under the black water, and only the moonlight provided sight as the silver hair sank deeper through the abyss. Within a moment, the oil and pollution of the Chanel coated the body, and a thick film spread over the surface like a sheet of ink. The disturbance on the surface soon melded into the rippling tide.

John brushed the dirt sleeked onto his hands against his trousers. Placing the flat of his heel against the wheelbarrow, he uttered a soft grunt, and sent it over the edge. It splashed into the water, gurgled as pockets of air sprouted from its soil-filled belly, and eventually dipped under.

Sweeney stared at the foul surface—the once powerful, feared, and revered Turpin would be imbedded in oil, sand, and refuse before the barber's eyes could tear from the water.

Only now did Sweeney Todd surrender the moment to think.

Unspoken words began to bubble to the surface.

_He has stolen my freedom—laughter—smile—tears. He drained me of life, filled me with hate. He murdered me._

Todd turned from the pier, and began a brisk stride to the end of the dock.

_I can barely remember the life had before those fifteen years. When I close my eyes, I feel blood. I hear screams. I see _him_._

John managed to meet the barber's pace, so that the two walked in sync down the cobbled road.

_He has taken away my chance to be a husband—the chance to watch my baby grow._

"I can't forgive him."

John switched his gaze, which had been centered on the street passing beneath his feet, to the side of Sweeney's face.  
"Ain't no one asking yeh to, Ben," he said.

"I know," mumbled Todd, but his feet lagged in step, and he suddenly came to a stop. His eyes shot up; widening an inch, bright with some sort of revelation. "But if I'm to be a father to my daughter, her _real_ father"—the stony foundation that was always set in his brow began to break; the gravel in his voice became watery—"then I have to try."

"Try to forgive him, you mean?" John clapped his palm onto Todd's shoulder, easing him into walking again.

"Yeah," Todd nodded, his eyes still raised with purpose as his feet moved on their own accord, his mind detached from the rest of his body. "Then at least," his words were becoming fainter, "I won't be to worst thing for her…I won't have to keep myself away…"

John chuckled, drawing his collar down to his neck as the two approached Mrs. Lovett's shop. "I asked for yeh to gain closure ages ago, and now 'ere it is." He gripped the door handle, and gave it a wrench to the left, easing the wood open with one broad shoulder. "But it's as the ol' sayin' goes—better late than never, aye?"

Before Todd could follow into the bakery, he spared the sky one last glance.

The horizon was threaded with gold, as the sun reached towards the sky in an earnest climb. Clouds drifted over the rays, and their moist haze faded as rivers of sunlight seeped through their translucent bodies.  
A slightly warm wind, rather than a frosty, winter sting, brushed over the vacant streets, like a hand caressing the stone and the very few who tread upon it.

With a sigh, Sweeney Todd turned away from the sight, entered into Mrs. Lovett's shop, as the wind eased the door shut in his wake.

**As I have said before, there will be another chapter after this. You all deserve it :) **

**And I am so looking forward to reading your amazing reviews once again. They truly make me happy! **_**Please drop me a line, tell me how you felt about the chapter**_**. I did all I good to make it a decent read. **

**Until next update!**


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